Symbiosis
by T- Virus Rose
Summary: A human train wreck of a soldier stranded after the death of her team and a young man on the opposite side of her war who seems both thirsty for blood and entirely too human must decide what to do with one another after a violent first encounter, and how to survive for another day.
1. Clash

-x-

The waiting was the worst, but it was about to be over. It was killing him, killing him to stay so perfectly still when every ounce of him, his taut muscles and the white-hot pangs of adrenaline rocketing through him and the hunger turning his gut, were screaming that it was time to act. Hidden out of sight, he writhed silently. Sharp upper teeth bit into his lower lip until the bitter taste of diseased blood hit his tongue, and a filthy set of claws gripped the edge of the high place where he was perched. But he knew. It wasn't time yet. Still more waiting.

The smell coming from below was stomach-churning, a blended reek of rain and infected blood and so much charred flesh. Fire was everywhere. And there in the middle of it was the hulking corpse of one of the Big Ones, twisted into the ruins of the metal beast that the prey had come in, so freshly dead that it was still oozing blood and sizzling. Scattered around too were the fallen bodies of the weak ones that had flocked to the noise and the chaos. Not any of them were moving. His instinct kept him alert, told him that this was still dangerous. But underneath it all was another scent that was even sharper, warm and delicious and cutting clear through everything else; prey scent, and that wouldn't let him leave.

There had been a group of them before. He'd seen them come roaring in killing everything in their path, but it had been too dangerous for him to strike. His mind might have been diseased, but at least he knew that much. But that had been before the Big One had found them. Now, most of them had been reduced to pulp that the other ones like him would soon descend on, desperate and hungry. He knew; he was too.

It wasn't all death though, his senses told him. Keen ears alert he leaned out over the edge of the roof, tilting his head and baring a single tooth. Something was still down there and it… it was going to be his. He wanted this. _Needed_ it.

Below, something moved. The Hunter flattened himself out of view.

-x-

She was going to bake alive if she couldn't get the hell out of here quickly. Trapped right between the wreckage of the Humvee and the smoldering Tank Cooked Medium Rare and only saved from being flattened by what remained of the cab was a really… really shitty place to be stuck at the moment. The soldier coughed and gagged, slipping the front of her shirt up over her nose in an attempt to keep from inhaling lungfuls of smoke and the sickly sweet odor of burning flesh and gasoline. Really it had seemed like a great idea at the time to douse the thing in one of her "homebrews" and watch it go up like a bonfire, and she supposed that it _had_ done its job. Really the problem was probably that she'd assumed climbing back into the vehicle for security while she fired would be a good idea. But she didn't think she wanted to experience what being cooked felt like, either.

"Come _on_!" she grunted, shoving the entire weight of her shoulder into the massive limb and shoulder keeping her pinned into the upturned vehicle. It just barely budged. FUCK. She let out a short yell of frustration, pretty sure that the corpse would muffle it anyways. For all of her training, she was still about… five feet and one hundred and ten pounds against a whole lot of literally dead weight. She shook her head furiously and let out another grunt, putting all of her might into moving this damned thing. This time there was at least enough leverage that a gap was created and she took this to her advantage, wedging herself between the thing's limp arm and the metal to squeeze herself out. Burnt, flaking chunks of skin rubbed off against her uniform, disgustingly, until finally she managed to free herself. She gasped in the comparatively fresh air and blinked her stinging eyes hard.

Immediately she whipped around in a short semicircle with her assault rifle drawn to scope out the area, despite the fact that she knew that she'd emptied the clip out and hadn't had time to reload. At least everything still looked pretty… dead. Unfortunately, this also included the five men and women who'd made up the rest of her extraction team. This _really_ wasn't good. It had been drilled into her and just about everyone else left alive on the planet's head that sticking together was the key to staying alive and not getting snared by a Smoker or some shit. That whole "lone survivor" thing you saw in movies didn't work for long. She'd seen it.

"Jesus fuck," she couldn't help but mutter as she sidestepped what was _left_ of their medic, Carlin. It wasn't as though she hadn't seen people dying plenty of times before, but, hell. She'd trained with these people for the past months and that was enough to give someone at least some kind of attachment. Grimacing somberly, she yanked the radio transmitter off of the back of her belt and held down the transmit button.

"This is Private Theodora Skyler, calling Midway. Come in Midway. Can anyone hear-"

She was cut off by an odd, distorted burst of white noise, a very clear sound of the device being fucked. With more than a little displeasure, she realized that after her hard landing when the jeep had been flipped it was a good deal flatter and more broken than before. A sharp curse left her mouth and she threw it to the pavement in frustration. Great. So she really _was_ on her own out here.

Alright, so. Shelter had to be her first order of business. After all of the commotion, she was sure that the fight hadn't gone unnoticed, and the infected that her and the rest of the team had gunned down had to be only the first wave that would come looking. A safe room up to CEDA code and stocked with some ammunition would be the greatest thing in the world right then, but a sealed spot with a sturdy door would do. Provided, that was, she didn't manage to piss off any more Tanks or Witches. After taking a quick inventory of her remaining supplies and reloading another clip into the assault rifle, and one brief and silent acknowledgement that her teammates would be missed, Skyler got on the move.

It was then that she was drawn to attention by the sound of a growl.

-x-

No! The Hunter jerked back as hard as he could, holding back a snarl and clenching the rooftop even harder. A little bit of blood dribbled down from his wounded lip. He quieted his breath as much as he could, despite being able to hear his own heartbeat in his ears. That… that had been bad. His thoughts were blurry and near-dizzy with excitement and hunger, and he'd nearly been spotted for it. Finally though, the prey seemed to ease up and started moving again.

Follow. Still on all fours and keeping as low as possible he shifted after them, taking in what he could. This prey was a woman. Small, smaller than him, but battle-scarred. From the scent being carried up to him she smelled like sweat and burn and blood not her own, which was somehow strangely entrancing, especially when layered over the irresistible scent of one of the Clean Ones. She moved with more confidence and certainty than he was used to seeing from them. Something seemed… not quite the same about her, from what he remembered. Prey was usually hurried, scared, desperate. No, something in the back of his brain told him that he was going to have to work for this kill. Maybe it was a little bit dangerous, but he shook with anticipation; that fight, that challenge, was what he lived for.

While her back was turned, silent as ever, he made a running leap. At the very last second he tensed his limbs, crouched, and launched himself into the air. During that moment of weightlessness, a wild sort of glee filled him. The bunching and unbunching of his muscles, the wind in his face, the feeling of control were amazing. Soothing, familiar. It helped him think about something other than the throbbing headache and the dull pain that seemed to be settled into every part of his body, anyways. He rolled when he hit the next roof, hardly having to break his stride.

As he crept along after his prey, he gradually started to bare one tooth. She looked alert, but more focused on wherever she was going than on looking out. She really must not have spotted him after all. Good. Good good good. Unsuspecting prey. The urges swelled up loud and overwhelming.

 _Jump. Tear. Kill._ _ **Eat**_ _._

He got back into a low stance, his pulse racing. It was finally time. Every muscle in his body was tensed and ready to spring. Slightly, just barely, he sidled up to the edge, practically feeling the momentum carrying him down onto his kill already-

It happened so quickly that it took him a moment to realize exactly what _had_ happened. A few explosive _bangs!_ shattered the silence and, unable to help a shocked snarl of surprise, he yanked himself back and flattened himself against the surface. Those couple of seconds were all that he needed though to see that she'd been _looking right at him_.

-x-

A slight smirk lifted Skyler's face. Well, that might not have solved the problem entirely, but it had at least sent the message to her stalker that she knew they were there.

"Fucker."

It was a damn Hunter. Didn't that figure? Just about the worst thing to run into while she was on her own. She'd seen what they'd do if there was no one to get them the hell off; it would shred her and throw her innards around like some kind of gory confetti. Well. She guessed that just meant she was going to have to not get jumped on. At least there was only one of them.

For about a minute she stood her ground, staring hard at the corner of the rooftop where she'd seen the top of its head disappear to. There was no further sign of it, though she was sure she hadn't actually managed to hit it. Shit. So apparently they were at least clever enough to lay low. She couldn't just sit around all day waiting for it to come back out so she could finish the job, though. Eventually she grimaced but had to move on. Hopefully that would at least put it off of pursuing her for a little bit.

She kept moving at a steady clip down the street, sticking to the center of the road to avoid both the rooftops and any parked cars along the sides that something could be hiding under. Nothing jumped out but, noticeably, she did see a few dead commons that looked like they'd met their end being thrown off to the side. This must have been the way that the Tank had come. So it had more or less cleared the way for her. At least something had worked out in her favor. Just in case she kept an eye out for any promising red arrows pointed towards safety, but saw nothing yet. This was a decently sized city though. If she could make it far enough, there had to be something _somewhere_.

The entire time, she was sure that the Hunter was watching her. And as she continued on her way, she became increasingly sure that it was from somewhere entirely too close for comfort, if the instincts she'd gained during her weeks surviving out in the open had given her served her well. Of course though, every time that she looked up, she saw nothing. Sneaky bastard. It was just waiting, wasn't it?

She scowled to herself. That was… okay. Hell, if this was the game that it wanted to play, she could play it. Rifle constantly at the ready, she even began humming a few bars out loud, just to be cheeky and show it exactly how much she couldn't care, as if it would know the difference anyways. Whatever. She'd taken on far worse than a single Hunter and come out unscathed, anyways.

It continued on like that for maybe a quarter mile. Every once in a while she would hear something like the patter of gravel off of a rooftop or what might have been another growl, and each time she'd make sure to aim her sights in exactly that direction. The thing still didn't duck its head out, but she'd be good anyways if she could just ward it off until she could secure herself.

Speaking of which… _there_. A beautiful splotch of red paint on the pavement caught her attention in the middle of the road. The simple "house" drawing with a red arrow underneath pointed her in the direction of a narrow alleyway. Skyler let out a short bark of laughter in relief. Christ, finally. She was home free, for now at least. Time to lock herself in and be able to spend a night not worrying about Tanks, or hordes, or goddamn stalker Hunters. She ducked into the alleyway and, triumphantly, turned her face up at the rooftops while flipping up her middle finger on her free hand.

"Yyyeah!" she crowed with a grin spread across her face, "How's that, you sneaky little shit? In your creepy goddamn hood face! Good luck getting your dinner tonight!"

All she had to do was get over this stupid car blocking the way, and then the way looked more or less clear. Like a pro vaulter she put her hands onto the back of the car and swung herself up, weight of her gear and all-

And as soon as her feet hit the back of the beat-up old station wagon, she was half-deafened by a series of loud, keening beeps piercing the night air, echoing through the streets for probably a mile around and surely alerting every infected in that radius to her presence. The blood drained out of her face and for a moment she couldn't do much more than stand dumbly atop the hood. She hardly had time to be amazed that after months of sitting derelict the car alarm was still working before in the near distance, the sound of furious screaming rose up to meet her, nearly drowning out the sound of the alarm. Even over that though, and from very directly overhead, she could clearly hear the enraged shriek of a Hunter that was about to pounce.

Shit! She _knew_ that it had still been after her!

Skyler immediately jumped off the car and backed herself close against a wall in the alley for cover, rifle at the ready, and shook her head. As she saw the first wave of the commons rushing down at her she just let out a low groan of,

"Iii fucked up."

-x-

 _Kill it! Kill it! Killitkillit_ _ **killit**_ _-_

For a moment after the horrible noise shattered the silence, all the Hunter could do was stagger backwards, bringing his hands up over his ears and cringing. It felt like it was ripping through his ears and, unable to hold it back, he let loose the shriek that had been building in his throat. He **had to** stop the sound. Had to eliminate any trace of what had caused it. It was anger and it was pain and it had to be destroyed.

From every direction around his brothers raised their own voices to scream their anger at the disturbance, which only made it so much worse. At that time, he was entirely certain that something sharp was being driven directly into his brain, the ache assaulting it was so painful. The pain and the adrenaline boiled over into even more rage, enough that he thought it would burst out of him. Fast and confused and agonized as his thoughts were racing though, he still somehow managed to realize what was going on down below.

She… she was fighting off entire waves of his lesser brothers with her firestick. It was busy killing _them_ , and she was looking every way except for where he was waiting. As he watched, one of them even actually got a hold of her and she had to stop to shove them off.

It was time.

A savage snarl tore free from his throat. No more waiting. With that he threw his head back into an extended shriek, his pain and his fury and his need to kill this woman blending together into a sound that was terrifying, even to him. He didn't stop screaming when he finally released the unbearable tension that had built up in him and pounced, his legs pushing him off of the roof and then down towards the stunned prey below.

-x-

There was a brief instant before the screaming blue blur soaring down through the air hit her, and in that moment all Skyler could do was stare upwards, the last of the horde that she'd very nearly dispatched of suddenly forgotten. Maybe it was just shock, but the single thought that ran through her head was strangely calm, and almost unimpressed:

 _I'm about to die._

And then the Hunter was on her. From that height its weight was like a ton of bricks slamming into her admittedly small frame, and was more than enough to send her crashing violently to the ground with it. It knocked every bit of the wind out of her and, from the explosion of pain in her ribcage, probably cracked or at least bruised a few of her ribs in the process. She could actually feel her chest cave slightly and black swam in her vision. The impact stunned her, and for a second she wasn't conscious enough to do anything.

No. NO.

Then the Hunter raised its arms and splayed its claws to tear into her, and both Skyler's body and her mind were sent into autopilot.

-x-

There was no way to describe the savage glee that he was feeling when he was about to make a kill. It washed over him, filled his mind, took away every other meaningless thing except for his prey under him; her heartbeat so frantic it nearly kept time with his, the way that she thrashed and bucked and screamed underneath him, the delicious scent of her fear and adrenaline.

 _ **KILLKILLKILLKILL!**_

His claws raked over her chest over and over, first shredding through unusually tough fabric and then sending shallow arcs of blood flying into the air. The sight and smell of blood only fueled him, the bloodlust sending him father into a manic frenzy. Her screaming became almost as loud as his own, but it was more desperate and angry rather than the complete fear he was used to in the strange sounds that the Clean Ones made.

It was so good but something… something was strange. Something was taking away from the glee that would normally come with the kill, and he didn't like it. He growled in frustration directly in her face as his destroyed mind struggled to understand what it could be.

Her… her eyes? She was staring right up at him, and her eyes were… they were _furious_. Her gaze felt hot and piercing through him, almost like the bite from a firestick. The errant thought flitted through the back of his scattered thoughts that it felt almost like they were trying to say that he _did_ something-

Irrationally, a spike of panic shot through his gut, muddling and confusing with all of the other excitement he was wrapped in. No, he- he _hated_ this. Hated it. Whatever it was, all he knew was that he had to stop it. So she would just stop- **looking** at him!

His head throbbed and he was panicked and enraged that she had done this to him while he was in the middle of making her his kill. Whatever she'd done to cause it, this prey was going to pay for it.

-x-

Skyler's whole body burned with desperation and her blood pounded through her at a million miles an hour. A good deal of it, worryingly, was soaking into her now-shredded bulletproof vest. The only reason she _hadn't_ even been disemboweled yet was probably because of the tough military-grade vest, but if the Hunter kept getting in swipes the way that it was, she could definitely count on more than some nasty scratches over her chest. For all she was worth she bucked and kicked and fought, trying to kick the creature off or writhe her way out from under it, but her struggling seemed to be doing next to nothing, except for maybe exciting the creature more.

"FUCK YOU!" she shrieked, doing her best to work her knee up under the creature, but it simply had her pinned too tightly to the ground. She uselessly scratched at the pavement with her nails as she tried to free her arms. Hell no. She didn't want to die helpless and trapped like this! "Get the hell OFF OF ME!"

To her great surprise and almost as if in response, the Hunter suddenly broke off its clawing attack. It did, however, growl in her face, and it got in close enough that she could smell and feel its breath, fevered and reeking of disease and stale blood, hot down her neck. She could see the blood-tainted saliva dripping down from the sharpened teeth that it had bared in a snarl and noted with some disgust that at least some of the blood splattered over its face was her own. She caught the barest glimpse under the hood of its sweatshirt and saw feral, gleaming yellow eyes burning back out and… strangely, locked directly onto her own brown ones. Oh Christ. What was it even doing?

It turned out that she really, _really_ didn't want the answer. A second later agony, unbearable and quite literally blinding, raked down the side of her face. Skyler shrieked in pain like none she'd ever known before and the blood poured down her face in a hot torrent. Her vision, and not just in her right eye, blacked out. She was about to vomit. She was thrashing, she was kicking, she wasn't actually aware of what she was doing but…

And then amazingly, she was met with a sharp yelp of surprise as she managed to kick the Hunter right off of her. Obviously it hadn't counted on its meal having the kind of strength that she did or being able to pull that off, because it looked exactly as shocked as she did. Skyler rolled away, barely able to see, but with what vision she had she searched frantically for her assault rifle only to find that it had skidded down the alley. Too far away. Still panting in agony, she unsheathed her combat knife.

-x-

There wasn't a single thought left in the Hunter's head. Whatever thoughts had been there blended together into a deafening, incomprehensible scream that demanded blood as he was knocked backwards and away. The rage he was screeching made his throat raw and he was already righting himself to attack again. The anger was _unbearable_. It was greater even than the hunger rioting in his gut.

He was barely aware that the prey was also poised to strike again, but even if he did he was beyond caring at that point. Not giving her the chance to do anything he lunged for her again, snapping his teeth at her in an attempt to latch onto something. At the last second she brought up her arms to defend herself as he slammed into her, but it wasn't enough to stop the force from knocking her back down. She yelled angrily and shoved with an amount of strength he wasn't expecting from her. But no. He couldn't let his prey escape like that. He let out another guttural snarl and snapped at her again to stop her from shaking him. This time, he managed to connect with her hand.

The taste of her blood, pure and clean, flooded his senses, and then the hunger took over. The anger was more than certainly still there, burning strong through him, but right now, it hardly mattered. This was a matter of simple need. Feeding. A shriek of excitement welled in his throat, but he let it stay muffled so he wouldn't be forced to release his hold. He sank his claws into her shoulders and his teeth deeper into her flesh even as he heard her gasp in pain and the crunch of some bone as it gave way. Her eye that he hadn't gotten rid of yet was glazed with the familiar look of intense pain and by now the scent of fear was rolling off of her, in waves. That… _something_ was still there though, and it was making his head throb. He was going to have to take care of that next-

It was then that he felt something cold and sharp press against his gut. His instincts fired up danger signals and usually this is when they'd be screaming that he should get away, but he couldn't have released her even if he wanted to. He was too fixated on satisfying the hunger. Through her mangled hand he gave a truly threatening growl. What the prey responded with though was somehow the most menacing sound that he'd even heard from a Clean One while they were underneath him. She drew her free arm back and…

Pain exploded through his gut before he could even process what had happened, so sharp that it chased a good deal of the aggression right out of him. He gave a delayed yelp of fright, unintentionally releasing his hold on the prey as he did so. Before he knew it she'd slipped out of his grasp, prompting another strangely dull snarl from him. He… he didn't understand. How had she…? Slowly he realized that she was still gripping the sharp object in her blood-slick hands, and that he could feel hot, sticky dampness spreading over the front of his coverings. He stared down at it, giving a soft, almost confused gasp.

 _Blood. Blood._ _ **My**_ _blood-_

While he was stunned she managed to plunge the thing a second time into his side. This time though he realized what was going on and screeched, swatting the object out of his side and away.

Hurt. Hurt _badly_. He had to get out of here. Had to RUN.

Half-blinded by terror and pain the Hunter drew his legs up under him and leaped off of the prey as far as he could go. To his shock he hit the ground unevenly not nearly as far as he'd wanted to go and had to roll himself back upright, his claws scrabbling frantically over the ground for purchase. His own sick blood soaked through his coverings and dripped down underneath him. It… it hurt so _much_. But he couldn't stop there. Not safe; not yet.

He wasn't sure how long he managed to go for, but soon, there was simply too much pain for him to go any farther. Wheezing, clutching the newly slick fabric of his covering, the Hunter finally rolled himself under the cover of one of the big metal things where none of the other ones like him could see him. With a series of pitiful whines, he collapsed there into a shuddering, bleeding heap. His stomach lurched and convulsed, but empty as it was nothing came up and it was so sore all it made him do was let out another yowl.

This was…. This was the worst. He was still horribly angry, and somehow he felt both nauseated and hungrier than even before at the same time. Only now, he hurt too much to do anything about it. Nothing except lie there, whimpering to himself and wondering what was going to happen. Slowly, the pounding fury began to fade into something even worse; more fear. With another low whine, the Hunter curled in around himself and sagged limply.

This was bad. This was very, very bad.


	2. Still Alive

**-x-**

 _Skyler combed her damp hair back from her neck and shoulders with nervous fingers, leaning in close to the mirror in the apartment's bathroom. It was still light, at least; the building management had contacted the remaining tenants earlier in the day to inform them that the power would be being shut off later that night. The sight of her own rather freckled face stared back at her. There was a slight crease between her eyebrows, but at least she was freshly washed. Slowly though as she brushed her hair smooth, the thought began to sink in again that this… would really be the last night that she was spending in here. For a long while, anyways. She'd barely managed to finally step out on her own and strike out, and tonight was the night that they were being sent to evacuate._

 _After a few moments though she shook her head, forcing a weary smile onto her face. "Best enjoy this while you can," she muttered to herself. "Where you're going might not have the luxury of a steamy shower."_

 _She was interrupted about then by the sound of a soft knock on the door. A familiar voice called her from her thoughts,_

 _"_ _Theo? Are you ready?"_

"Death warmed over" would be an overly pleasant way to describe how Skyler looked right then. Thin streaks of blood trailed over the mirror in the bathroom of the dingy flat she'd had to substitute for a nice, sturdy safe house as she braced her uninjured hand up against it. Gingerly she ran the fingers on her other hand down the injured side of her face.

What she saw looked more like a special effect out of some horror movie than an actual, real-life injury. Not only were the four long and incredibly painful scratches down the right side of her face still red and brutally inflamed, but what remained of her eye had been reduced to little more than gore. She remembered something about the texture of an eyeball being something akin to a grape, and- Her face, already pale from shock and blood loss, went white. At least there was nothing left in her stomach at this point. Not entirely lucid from a combination of. Well, just about everything, Skyler let out a long groan and sagged down onto the bathroom floor.

"I look… awesome."

The rest of her trip here had been an adventure, that was for sure. After she'd freed herself from the fucking Hunter she'd been fully intent on finding the safe house she'd been after and locking herself in for the night, but soon she'd become dangerously dizzy and within an inch of passing out on her feet. Already she'd lost her lunch several times. Wouldn't that just beat all, to have survived the shit she'd just been through and then pass out in the open to make an easy meal? With that in mind she'd had to settle for taking up a temporary residence in the sad little flat in back of a long past looted convenience store. She'd just… continue to hope that nothing managed to track the trail of blood she'd had to have left behind her and that the barricade on the door would hold if it did.

After a while of just sitting there, she was forced to realize that soon she was going to have to do something about this. The blood was already starting to clot so she didn't think that she was going to bleed to death… probably anyways… but this seemed like the perfect grounds for getting a nasty infection if she didn't take care of it quickly. She still had a paltry first aid kit, but fuck if she had more than a general idea of how to use it. With a long, drawn-out sound of displeasure, she hauled herself back to her feet and over the sink.

"Carlin, I'm going to kill you for going and dying," she muttered near-unintelligibly, her face down in the dusty sink bowl.

Jesus. Half a year ago, she probably wouldn't have recognized herself like this. "Theodora Skyler, enlisting in the military and alive after five months of fighting waves of zombies and now being mauled by a mutant freak" just didn't sound like a plausible sentence, but here she was. Still not dead, yet anyways. She bet her sister would have said it was because she was a Taurus.

Arms feeling heavy already she tugged the pack down off of her back, dumping it down into the sink before digging through it for the kit. Grimly, she examined first the shallow slashes covering her chest, and then the reflection of the gore all over her face in the mirror. Very gingerly, she prodded at her clawed cheek with a couple of fingers.

Well. Might as well get the worst of it over with first. How hard could it be, right?

 **-x-**

The Hunter wasn't even aware of his limbs collapsing out from under him again until the ground was rushing up too fast to meet his face, and he was left lying in a pile of his own limbs. He had to muffle a shriek of distress to avoid being heard.

Come on, he… he had to get up! He willed himself as hard as he could, panting raggedly with the effort. It hurt it hurt it hurt-

It wasn't easy, but it didn't take too long for him to get back to his feet. This still wasn't good, though. Even when he felt pain, usually he was able to continue on however much it might actually hurt, but this time was different. Slowly and certainly he could feel his strength leaving. He didn't totally understand why, but his body was failing him.

This… this was that woman prey's fault. All of this pain and weakness, she'd done this to him. Anger swelled up in him, his claws twitching on the ground. His head throbbed but at least it helped keep him on his feet.

It hadn't taken him long to realize something after he'd crawled back out from under the meager shelter he'd found: This wasn't something that would just go away if he hid out for a while, keeping low and hunting on the ground. He might have still been moving and breathing, but the life was leaving him as surely as his blood was still soaking out through his covering and onto the ground. She'd killed him. He was going to die.

But at least before he did, he could finish this. Could make sure that the one who did this to him died, too.

Every step was awful, and every move he made he had to bite back whimpers. He had to keep quiet; his brothers wouldn't hesitate to make a meal out of _him_ if it looked like it'd be easy enough. Even as black danced in the corners of his vision, he snarled at one of the weak ones that started looking at him a little too curiously.

Eventually he got back to the point where he could smell her blood again. Up ahead, he could see the spot where they'd fought before. Already a few weak ones were snuffling around, trying to find some trace of the prey. From up above somewhere, he thought he could smell one of his long-tongued brothers and maybe see a couple of those strange floating things that they tended to give off. He hissed to startle them off.

Yes. She'd definitely moved on from here, and left a trail of her blood while she was doing it that not even the rain had washed away. Good. Very good. That would make her easier to track, and it meant that she was already weakened. He was sure that he'd hurt her badly even if he hadn't managed to kill her. An easy kill and then… and then he could stop and rest. The thought was the only thing that kept him going through the ache ripping through his gut and the fuzzy, tired haze that was starting to settle into his body.

He could rest once she was dead. With grim purpose, the Hunter agonizingly stalked onward.

 **-x-**

A couple of involuntary tears rolled down the side of Skyler's face, already slick with sweat, as she carefully flexed her right hand to see how bad the damage was. At least it wasn't entirely crippled, but it definitely did feel stiff and painful to move, which was bad news for wielding a weapon. Too bad she was going to have to grin and bear it anyways. The ameteur bandaging she'd given it was going to have to do.

She'd definitely been right about her eye being the worst of it. All she really could do anyways was clean the area with some disinfectant and apply bandages, but even that had been enough to make her want to piss herself from the pain. It had all been a hell of a task, really, when she was newly half-blind. Just about everything was pretty disorienting right then.

At this point she was practically unconscious on her feet already, and wouldn't really have minded just falling over and taking a long, long nap right there on the bathroom floor. She was crashing hard from her adrenaline rush and had just been put through pain like she'd never been through before. Skyler was, in short, about fifty levels worth of done. Unfortunately though, that would have to wait.

With a heavy groan she hauled herself out into the cramped combination living room-kitchen. Christ, this place had some of the ugliest furniture she'd ever seen. Dizzily she hoped that whoever had apparently thought it was a good idea to stretch a rat pelt over a loveseat had gotten puked on by a Boomer or something. Oh fuck, there went her stomach again- She clumsily withdrew her canteen and forced herself to take a few long swigs. Usually she wouldn't be so indulgent with it, but the blood loss had to have dehydrated her. It did at least settle her some. Carlin would probably be telling her to keep herself hydrated, anyways.

Once she was at least fifty percent sure that she wasn't going to throw up again, she moved onto the business of actually securing the place. Who would have guessed that the newly proclaimed Ugliest Chair on Earth would be good for something after all? Putting all of her tired muscle into it she tugged and pushed until it was wedged in front of the only door to the outside. Even if something did start breaking through that, it would make enough of a racket to let her know about it. Without any plywood or anything to spare, she had to opt for simply making certain that the windows were shut tightly and pulling the curtains on them shut to avoid drawing any attention. Something would have to be relatively small to fit through them, anyhow. Not much bigger than her, anyhow.

"Good. Now I can sleep for the next fifty years."

Feeling accomplished, Skyler shuffled back towards the bedroom at the back of the flat, snatching her assault rifle up off the kitchen counter where she'd left it along the way. If there was another ordeal tonight, she was going to be pretty pissed about it.

 **-x-**

He… he was sure that he was closing in now. He had to be. The scent of the prey's blood was still strong. At least, he thought it was. His sense of smell was sort of blending together in a sickening way and he was horribly disoriented. All he could really hope was that it was pointing him in the right direction.

Shudders ran constantly through his body even though he still felt horribly fevered. He was soaked to the skin and, as close to the ground as he was crawling, his coverings were actually dragging into puddles. There were high places all around which he could escape to, but he'd tried jumping, and it had been too much of an agony to take. He didn't feel safe at all on the ground like this, and besides that the climbing and jumping was one of the few things that brought him joy besides the killing. Something else the woman prey had taken.

 _Kill her, then rest. Kill her, then rest._

He let the thought drive him onward. It was about all he could focus on, anyways, he was so dizzy. There were a few times that he wasn't even entirely sure that he wasn't just sort of… floating. Eventually though his surroundings became strangely familiar, and for a few moments he had to just stare, blinking blearily and working out just where he was.

This was… he was staring down the passageway, to the entrance to his nest. Had he gotten confused and wound up back here? No though. The scent really was clear, and he realized that she… she was in there. His entire body tensed up and quivered.

She had _invaded his nest_. After escaping from his attack and wounding him so badly that he was practically a meal for the weak ones and couldn't even jump, she'd actually went and **taken over his territory**.

Unbearable rage boiled up in the Hunter, washing over him in a wave. It wiped out all thought except for that. **No**. He wasn't going to allow that. He wasn't going to die with his prey in his nest, and without her blood fresh on his claws. Despite the physical screaming in his gut, he managed almost close to a sprint as he closed the rest of the distance. He was going to appease his fury with her flesh and blood. Raising his head up towards the sky, he bared his teeth and let out a killing screech.

He hoped that the woman prey could hear him.

 **-x-**

Skyler's equipment belt hit the floor like a ten-ton sack of bricks. Before she could even take off her boots she let out a wordless moan and fell face-first into the mattress, burying her face deep into it. Goddamn. If there was one thing she was grateful to this place for having, it was a real mattress and not a cheap rollaway cot or sleeping bag like was present in a lot of designated safe houses. She was ready to never move again, even if for some strange reason all of the bedding was missing off of it. And for a long stretch she didn't, just laying there and trying not to think too hard on any one part of her that hurt. In one way or another practically everything was cut, bruised, sore, or stiff.

Ugh though. After a while, it started to get to her that something or other in here smelled pretty funky. Like sweat, or rotten blood, or some combination of the two. Even if the place looked relatively intact it wasn't a particularly surprising scent, but it was getting in the way of her time trying to forget about every single thing that had happened that way. She supposed she could get rid of whatever it was before she passed out.

It turned out not to take as long as she thought to figure out what is was. As soon as she rolled halfway out of bed, she saw the edge of a couple of blankets sticking oddly out from under the bedframe, which also solved the mystery of where all of those have gone. Tugging one of them out revealed it to be worn and lightly stained with some telltale red-brown splotches. She investigated this with a suspicious frown, pondering that this didn't seem like it had been used as rag to bandage someone's injury or something. What in the hell?

Curiously she knelt onto the floor and peeked underneath the bed and, sure enough, there was a whole mess of bedding. Sheets, a comforter, even a couple of near-shredded pillows, all just laying in a weird pile under there. Most of them looked similarly stained. It seemed sort of like…

Fuck. Like something had been laying in there after having rolled around in blood. What it _looked_ like was some kind of nest. Did the infected even do that? Closer inspection turned up the half-imprints of bloody footprints that had previously been nearly invisible against the carpet, so her conclusion was: Shit. Yes, apparently they did. And that she'd managed to set up camp for the night sitting directly over the top of one of them.

The realization was unsettling and immediately made her tense up, looking in every direction even though she was pretty clearly alone in here. After a minute though she shook her head, shrugging her shoulders. Well, too bad for whatever had been staying in here. Sorry buddy, but there was a new tenant. Whatever it was had probably died by now anyways.

Of course, it was right fucking then though that she heard the enraged shriek of a Hunter from outside, immediately causing her to bolt straight upright and grab her assault rifle up from on top of the bed. That had been close. As in, _really_ close. Not a yard from the outside of this place, she didn't think.

The part of her brain that simply did not want to deal with any more of this mess tried to tell her that, well, maybe it _wasn't_ whatever lived here, and if she remained quiet enough it would quickly move on. Which lasted up until she heard the sound of one of the windows in the living room being smashed out and shattering on the floor.

Furiously Skyler shook her head, ducking out of view behind the doorframe and holding her rifle at the ready.

And at that moment, she was gripped with the powerful sense that some mysterious, cosmic entity had to be seriously. Fucking. Kidding her.


	3. The Lamb

A/N

Okay, so let me preface this with a fun fact for my original readers. "Ben's" name was actually Adrian all along, even in my original draft! This go around I decided to just reveal his actual name, rather than going with a nickname. I hope that this doesn't bother anyone for some reason.

* * *

 **-x-**

The Hunter was so very, very close. All he had to do was make it to his nest, and then… and then everything would be okay.

No. It wasn't going to be okay. He was _terrified_. At the thought of dying, afraid that he didn't have enough strength left in him to take what he needed. He pleaded with his failing body to at least give him that. At least let him die with one more rush, food in his stomach and blood on his claws.

From down the passage a couple of the weak ones began looking too closely at him for comfort, becoming partly alert with low noises. By now he could barely muster up the energy to growl threateningly enough to let them know that he'd be a challenge to them. If he stayed out here for too much longer, _they_ if not another one like him would kill him.

He let out a breath of relief when he reached the outside of the place that he'd made into his nest. Once he'd gotten into there and finished the prey that had invaded, he'd be safe from them. He could-

He'd been blocked off from his nest. For a second, the thought actually stunned him. Just to be certain he pressed a hand up against the crawlspace where he'd normally enter (and nearly fell back down, just barely able to support himself like this), only to find that something stiff and hard was indeed covering it up.

 _Kill. Kill._ ** _Kill her_ **_-_

How cruel could she possibly be after all of this to trap him out of his own nest?! She had to have been purposely trying to infuriate him. It was working. He let the burning in his mind drive him, gathering every ounce of energy left in his body. He was screaming as he shoved his shoulder into the barrier. It shattered into pieces on impact which, unexpectedly, left him slumped halfway into the room. He hardly noticed as the sharp parts cut into his exposed hands as he hauled himself the rest of the way in, tumbling to the floor.

Where was she?! He could smell her all over this place. Ragged strips of coverings were even scattered onto the floor soaked in her blood. Teeth bared, he whipped from side to side in search of her.

Click.

Immediately he was focused on the sound and turned towards it with a sharp growl. There she was, standing in the doorway. Her firestick was pointed directly at his face, but she seemed briefly stunned. He couldn't have run if he'd wanted to besides. He'd been right; she looked pale, weak. She seemed to have covered her injuries up with something, and even then he could still smell blood faintly oozing through.

He could do this. All he had to do was get on top of her before her firestick could bite him. It was time.

 _Hate her. Kill her._ ** _Kill her now!_**

His mind reduced to that single thought, a guttural snarl left him. The last remaining will left in his body gathered into his tensed limbs and with that, the Hunter sprang towards his shocked and immobile prey.

 **-x-**

"SON OF A BITCH!"

This is what she got for being an idiot and hesitating on the trigger because it looked like the thing couldn't jump! Skyler let out a harsh yell as she was knocked to the ground by the Hunter's weight crashing into her. "No no no no no-!"

The clawing that she expected… didn't come. What the hell?

The creature was, in fact, totally still on top of her. Holy… holy shit. Had it just _died_ on top of her? Well no. Not quite. She could still feel its chest moving in and out with shallow breaths. More than likely just passed out from its obvious injuries.

Blue and (at least she thought) white sweatshit. Obvious stab wounds to its stomach and side. Yep, this was definitely the same fucking Hunter, because of course it was. They just didn't give up once they had a murder-on for somebody, did they?

"Persistent little bastard," she grumbled as she pushed her way back to her feet, staring down hard. Just in case it moved she kept her assault rifle trained on its hooded head. "What, you came back all this way just to finish me? Huh?"

From the looks of it, there wasn't much way that was happening. Wow. This was actually kind of pathetic. Still vaguely amazed that she'd managed to avoid being shredded again by pure luck, she hesitantly prodded the Hunter with the end of her rifle. Its breath might've hitched a little, but it didn't regain consciousness. Maybe she… maybe she should make sure it wasn't playing possum or something about to spring at her face. She made a mental note that it definitely _wasn't_ just out of a morbid curiosity to see what it actually looked like close up. Very slowly and keeping her weapon trained Skyler crouched back down close to its side, investigating as closely as she dared.

This felt bizarre. The things really did look a lot different when they weren't tearing the shit out of someone. It… fuck. He wasn't a big boy. Hardly bigger than she was, as it turned out. It had just been hard to tell while he'd been trying to _murder her face_. Rough estimate, he was maybe eighteen or so. She hadn't thought of it before, but she was pretty sure that this was a campus town and the odds were good that she was looking at some little freshman here. She did her damndest not to feel maybe some little spark of pity seeing him here now, panting raggedly in what pretty much anyone could tell you was pain and apparently on death's doorstep.

There seemed to be something still stuck in the pocket of the filthy jeans he was wearing, if she was actually nosy and adventurous enough, but, well. The fact that she was kneeling there practically poking the Leaper with her rifle might've answered that question already. Absently her brain drifted to the Crocodile Hunter, may god rest his soul. Keeping her remaining eye glued on him the entire time, she cautiously kept her rifle under one arm, still ready to react at a moment's notice, until she could slide out whatever it was. Out came a pair of keys, a wallet, a small, worn pamphlet, and what did indeed seem to be a student ID.

"Huh. Well would you look at that. Fascinating."

Since she might as well go the whole nine yards she leaned back against the wall and perched her rifle in her lap to leaf through what she'd found. The leaflet she recognized as CEDA-issued instructions, and contained directions to the nearest evacuation center from the main campus building and instruction to bring legal documentation. That had to be at least a few months old; she knew for a fact that _they_ weren't doing much evacuating anymore. As a matter of fact, her base was the one that had gotten the refugees, and there had been three groups of them at the most.

The card identified a "LAMB, ANNA E.", issued the previous year, with a date of birth on 2/19/1990. Closer inspection revealed that the other side had the name "Adrian" written onto it with a metallic blue sharpie with an honest-to-god smiley face and a blueberry-shaped scratch and sniff sticker next to it. The dark-haired kid in the photo seemed to have been caught in the classic, awkwardly grinning moment of, 'Wait, are you taking it now?' Skyler frowned slightly, turning her head to the side.

"Adrian," she absently mused before she stopped herself, immediately going to her feet. This had been a bad idea. It was a lot easier to remain detached from a situation when she didn't know someone's name and that they stuck scratch-and-sniff stickers on their belongings.

Shit, she… it'd be a good idea to finish this quick before he woke up. There really wasn't time to think about these things.

"Whelp. Sorry about this, Adrian. Sucks to be you."

Skyler cocked her rifle. The Hunter raised his head.

 **-x-**

He… he didn't understand what had happened. Barely understood where he _was_. It was all running together, but he vaguely remembered being angry. Finding his nest. Attacking the prey inside. Being alerted by something that sounded somehow _dangerous_ , and…? Blearily he blinked, trying to take in what was going on. Unconsciously he let out a miserable groan. There was something- something in his face-

 _Firestick._

Panic reflex overtook him, yanking him into alertness. His thought process was delayed a few seconds behind his actions and it only really came to him in flashes. He let out a shriek that was much too close to frightened rather than fearsome. Felt but hardly even saw his claws just barely come into contact with skin. Fell hard onto the floor and scrabbled blindly. Somehow he wound up on his back, until he was stopped short by the explosion of pain through his gut. Unable to do anything else he curled inward, sucking in a sharp breath.

Usually the rush of adrenaline through him was thrilling, invigorating, gave him a kind of pleasure like almost nothing else did. Now it was just nauseating.

What did he do? What did he do? _What did he do_?! The urges both to attack and to flee from the danger were overwhelming. He swiped at the air, a phantom copy of the woman prey swimming in his vision. Gave a slurred growl. Backed up towards… Yes! That was what his dizzy, overworked brain latched onto. He had to get into his actual nest. Then he would be safe. **Then everything would be okay**.

He just had to make it back into his nest. Then everything would be alright.

 **-x-**

After watching the Leaper seemingly launch himself into a panic, give her a fresh cut across the bridge of her nose not much deeper than a cat scratch, and knock a shelf of cheesy plates off of the wall knocking into it, Skyler was pretty perplexed. She would have shot already, but. Shit, well this was something new. She'd seen these things jumping out of immediate danger before, but never once when there was a living, uninfected person so close. It had to be because he was so weakened. He had to be on the defensive.

Did he even know that she was there? The creature only seemed "conscious" in the most technical sense of the word. Testing it, she took a step back towards him, keeping her stance confident and almost aggressive. The sharp jerk and muffled yelp that he responded with seemed to indicate that yeah, yeah he did.

Skyler almost smirked a little. Heh. Now wasn't that something, having one of _them_ be afraid for once. Or maybe she was still just a little pissy that this one right here had _clawed out her eye_.

"Yeah. That's right," she grumbled, crossing her arms down at him. "Bet you're not used to your meal not being scared of you, huh?"

The Hunter panted and edged farther back, towards that back room. Where the hell did he think he was going, anyways? What did he even expect to find back…?

Ah, fuck.

And right then she got it, remembering what _was_ in that back bedroom: That crude blanket nest under the bed frame. It was his. Of every place around she could have chosen to hide in, she'd managed to pick this Hunter's house. No wonder he was pissed off at her. He was probably trying to crawl back there to die or something. Now that was depressing.

"You're killing me, kid," she groaned, cringing at the soreness as she wiped away the exhaustion from her eyes and nearly forgot about the mess where the right one was supposed to be. "You are literally killing me." Fucking _feelings_. These sucked and weren't safe at a time like this. She had a suspicion it had something to do with the fact that she was still groggy from all the bleeding she'd been doing besides.

He didn't seem to be going anywhere too fast, anyways. At that point in his little journey across the carpet he'd managed to back himself into the wall and was in some apparent distress that something was in his way like the world's saddest water bug. His desperation was apparent though or else he would have just given up already,

Just… just serve him his eviction notice already so that she could get some sleep.

Skyler crouched down close to the prone form of the creature. And _hesitated_. Actually hesitated. The warning flag popped up in her brain of, _whatever it is you're thinking, don't_. She recognized the look that the kid was giving her, though, despite the fact that he was still growling and snarling. She'd seen it at least once before, on the face of an unfortunate young man she'd fought with who'd been gutted by a Witch; he was waiting for death.

"Is that what it is, Adrian?" she mused, hardly aware at first that she'd used the name and paused with a grimace when she realized she did. She got a mouthful of dirty teeth bared in the general direction of her face in response.

 _You really don't have to do this, you know,_ the back of her mind continued. _In fact I'm pretty sure it's the stupidest idea anyone's ever had. Ever._ A few seconds went by in which she considered this before she snorted through her nose. Well that was perfectly good advice that she was entirely too good at ignoring.

The leaper let out another flimsy growl at her. Skyler shrugged her shoulders and let out a long sigh.

"Whatever, kid. I just hope that your little leaper brain knows that you're not dead yet by _my_ good graces, and you damn well better be thankful."

 **-x-**

Why was she doing this why didn't she just kill him already why wouldn't she **stop** why why _why why why_ -

His thoughts being muddled and confused was nothing new, but this endless swirl of screaming rage and hazy questions was even worse. The aching in his head felt like it was going to split his skull open.

 _Hate it, have to make it stop, how?! Have to kill her. Can't._

He rioted internally at his own weakness and wanted to at least swipe out, to fight, but the exhaustion wouldn't allow even that. His body wanted nothing more than to give in to that fuzzy blackness and it was getting harder and harder to deny. N-no. This wasn't how he'd wanted this to happen, this wasn't right…

By the time that he felt something grip him hard by his coverings unconsciousness seemed almost too warm and inviting to resist but it startled him partially back into wakefulness. Instinctively every muscle in his body tensed. This had to be the end. Urges welled up deep in him, stirrings of the bloodlust that was always there, mingling with a strange, fluttery combination of panic and some… relief? Yes, he thought so. This drawn-out torture was going to be over, at least. He'd face this without… without showing this prey he was afraid.

Just when he was starting to accept that he really was going to die defeated, without even getting to feel the tearing of flesh beneath his claws and the weight of food in his belly again, he was yanked backwards. The motion was so unexpected that he couldn't help but gasp and then, once he had time to realize that he was being _dragged_ , shriek.

No. No no no no! Not more of this! The Hunter threw every ounce of strength left in his body into blind, desperate thrashing to get away. It wasn't enough. WHY?! Why was she toying with him like this?

Why couldn't she just let him _die_ already?!

His claws carved gouges into the floor underneath him and he felt fresh blood seeping from his wounds, but every instinct in him boiled down to "resist". Stars exploded in his vision but his body wouldn't rest. He didn't understand what was going on, wasn't lucid enough to even begin to try to sort it out, so all he could do was fight. Barely, at the edges of his consciousness, he did manage to realize that the woman prey was heading into his nest room and snarled. She didn't _belong_ in there! This place was _his_ , it was meant for _him_ to be safe, and-! And…!

And as suddenly as it had started, the dragging ceased and he came to a stop. What…? Still caught up in the rush and disoriented from what he'd just been through, it took the Hunter a few seconds to blink his eyes and see where he was, panting and feeling rather short on air. There was…

His nest! The second he saw his worn, familiar pile of soft things the want to crawl into it and retreat struck him again. But wait, the woman prey…

He raised his head to snarl at her, at least trying to force her out. Some angry sort of muttering sound came from her, but to his surprise and confusion she was already backing off. That… that didn't make any sense. She had him weakened, more or less trapped. There was no reason for her to just leave. His head ached trying to make sense of it, but soon he decided that he was just too hurt and exhausted to do anything about it.

Still wary at her presence lingering close to the entrance he kept his eyes constantly on her but, driven by his deep-seated need to conceal himself, he managed to summon up just enough energy to pull himself inch by painful inch underneath the crawlspace. There his strength ran out and more or less against his will he sagged, sinking deep into the mess of softness saturated in his own scent. Even with the woman prey still in there the effect was soothing, utterly so. His eyelids had already started to feel increasingly heavy when the harsh sound of the entrance slamming made his skin jump. She was gone. From his nest room, at least.

A shaky sigh passed through his nose. He was still uncertain, his body itching with the leftovers of anger and stress. Some kind of thought was irritatingly trying to surface itself through the pounding in his brain and the tired haze.

 _Woman prey. And then… nest?_

It was only half-formed and he didn't have the energy or ability to really pursue it. For the moment at least he felt like he was… safe. For now. Pressing his nose up against the heavily-scented soft things and huddling up around his injured midsection, the Hunter finally allowed himself to drift into a daze that wasn't quite sleep.

 **-x-**

Skyler's feet dragged over the carpet that the leaper had just torn a new one like she was wearing lead boots. She didn't even bother really surveying the damage, this place could get fucked after she was done with it anyways. At this point, she only had eyes for the couch in the middle of the living room-ish area.

She grumbled as she made her trudge over, "Hi. I'm Adrian Lamb, and welcome to MTV Cribs. As you can see, I've got this… ugly-ass couch that looks like someone decided to use puke as a fabric swatch. And in the other room, I have this nice, perfectly good _bed_ … that no one can use because something in my leaper brain decided it would be a good idea to just sleep… UNDERNEATH it."

Again, she reminded herself that she really hadn't had to do what she'd just done. Christ, what _had_ she just done? She really didn't even want to think too much about what she'd just shut up in the room next to her, but there wasn't much avoiding it. Well. She'd already gone and done it and there wasn't much changing that. Wearily she cast one more glance back at the door, half-expecting it to come flying off its hinges as the pissed infected inside decided to bust out at her. Predictably and fortunately though, nothing happened, which she should have figured. He wasn't likely to go from not being able to get himself off the ground to that in the span of a couple of minutes.

Once she reached the couch she hit it face-first with a groan. Okay. It was time to think.

On the one hand, staying locked into an apartment with a leaper didn't sound like a very appealing concept, whether or not he was mostly dead. Besides that she had a brand-new swat across the nose to prove that even that didn't exactly mean "harmless". She was marginally less likely to pass out trying to find the safe room now that she'd patched herself up and made herself drink, and she could possibly even find it before morning.

On the other, she was just so done. So entirely, completely done with absolutely everything that the day had thrown at her. There probably wasn't a word to describe just how tired she was at that point. Even the hell couch felt about fifty times more soft and comfortable than it should.

Skyler hauled herself partway up, contemplating her escape route. Before her gaze could reach the barricaded door though it rested on the long smear of blood over the carpet into the bedroom, punctuated with the signs of the Hunter's frantic struggle. She'd almost felt _bad_ for the infected, he'd seemed so distressed. And almost… resigned. Like he'd been sure that he was about to face his death. That was probably the worst of it.

This was terrible for her. She couldn't let learning the kid's name or whatever turn her into some bleeding-heart type who cried over every zombie she happened to kill, which by then was a considerable damned amount. Still though. She couldn't help but wonder if he was actually going to last through the night…

"Fuck it," she finally moaned, stuffing one of the couch pillows under her face. This could… it could wait until morning. That sounded like a much better time for dealing with this. Besides, she was sure that the Hunter would be dead by then anyways. Well… half-sure. Probably. She could not even believe herself.

The complete silence that followed this decision dragged on for quite a while. At the moment her perception of time was pretty screwed. Eventually though, a low whimper rose up from the bedroom, a sort of broken whine. She just grimaced at the sound and blindly groped for the other couch pillow. She then nailed the door with it solidly enough and with a solid _whump_ that the pathetic sound cut off into a startled yelp. She buried her face back under the remaining pillow and shook her head.

"Shut the hell up, Adrian."


	4. Escape

A/N

So this chapter is a little short because I wound up having to break it to avoid ridiculous length but hopefully it's still alright as a standalone chapter so enjoy Skyler eating off of an unsanitary knife and an emotional game of tug o' war

* * *

 **-x-**

 _Every inch of Skyler was in pain. The single flickering light overhead glared down into her face, seeming far too bright as Lauren laid her out over the discarded sleeping bag on the floor. She gasped and clenched at the fabric in shock at just how much even that hurt._

 _She hardly even remembered much more than flashes of what had happened. They'd been fending off a horde back-to-back when she'd felt_ ** _something_ **_loop around her chest and yank. Suddenly she'd been being dragged off away from her sister, through the waiting crowd of infected. Then the fists and the teeth and the stomping feet had come. She'd been choking, she'd never been more badly beaten in her life, and then the last thing she could really recall was being dragged face to chest with the tongued thing pulling her. When she'd finally passed out, it had probably been from the lack of air._

 _"Lauren?" she gasped out fearfully, still trying to orient herself and wheezing in breath through crushed ribs._

 _Her sister paused in unpacking the contents of the first aid kit that she bore to nod, her expression still somehow managing to give off "cool and collected". Of course, Lauren was an emergency nurse, so maybe that wasn't entirely surprising._

 _"Yeah, Theo," she assured, carefully pressing her hand to the back of her own briefly. "We're alright. They got you pretty good, but we got out of there. I'm going to get you fixed up."_

 _Despite the calming tone, Skyler's heart was stuck fluttering unevenly, every beat of her pulse seemingly driving in the ache more. She let out a single short sound that could have been a laugh, but wound up more as a cough. It tasted coppery._

 _"I-I'm dying, aren't I?" she gasped out. She had to be. It certainly felt that way, anyways. "I'm really… really gonna die." God, no. Not like this._

 _Lauren shook her head, frowning down at her with a length of gauze uncoiled between her hands._

 _"You're not going to die, Theo. I promise you I've seen worse. Knowing you, you'll be back on your feet in maybe… three days tops. Promise." She reached down, swiping a lock of hair off of Skyler's forehead. "Right now all I need is for you to breathe. Alright? Just… deep breaths so that I can hear."_

 _That was easier said than done. Between the panic still gripping her and the fact that her lungs felt fit to burst into flame every time she took in too much air, she was left gasping for a bit. Gradually though under her sister's steady hand she began to settle some, taking in the situation more. She… she probably wasn't going to die after all. It hurt, it hurt more than anything she could remember in her life, but she thought she'd pull through. Her breath came easier and Lauren smiled._

 _"See? What'd I tell you."_

 _Eventually she was able to return the smile, even if it was shaky and through a split lip._

 _"Y-yeah, sis. Guess you were right. And… thanks."_

 **-x-**

At some point during her fitful sleep, Skyler had lost the couch pillow that she'd been using. A few rays of wintery sunlight filtered through and hit her directly over her remaining eye. She groaned miserably and shoved the pillow back over her face. She felt hungover but hey, that was blood loss for you.

"Just five more minutes," she grumbled, but the throbbing occupying the entire side of her face reminded her that she was probably going to have to get up eventually and clean this train wreck. Uuugh.

She hauled herself into an upright position on the couch. As her sleepy brain slowly cleared itself though, her gaze caught on the deep gouge marks scored right through the carpet and into the floorboards, and all of the memories of the previous night came flooding back.

Shit.

Well, despite her decision making skills being in serious question for evacuating the nice, secure bedroom so that an actual _Hunter_ who had tried to murder her could have his damned pillow fort, she'd made it until morning more or less "fine". Or… hadn't woken up to her insides being shredded, anyways. That was something.

She'd already made it halfway to the bathroom before she realized that her pack was still dumped beside the bed and suddenly it seemed like something that could be put off for a little bit longer. Shaking her head with a bitter scowl she turned instead for the little kitchen. Since it didn't look like this place had been inhabited by any non-rabid person since any of this had hit, maybe there was a chance of something nonperishable being left in there. Hell, maybe the infected that had taken up roost would have scared off anyone looking too.

The row of cans that greeted her when she pulled herself up onto the counter and swung open the cabinet looked like a holy grail. There were five of them and she read off fruit cocktail, evaporated milk, green beans, and a couple cans of cocktail weenies. She barked out a short laugh and clapped her hands together.

"Now would you look at that. A balanced breakfast."

Excited by the prospect of a meal that wasn't the shitty crackers that were all that she had in her pack she didn't bother looking for a can opener and drew out her combat knife, wiping the day-old leaper blood off on her leg before stabbing into the fruit cocktail and prying the lid off. At least she could enjoy this now that she wasn't about to throw up again.

She'd finished a good portion of the can before, without her even knowing it, her sight gradually came back to rest on the tracks in the floor. It was a moment still until she noticed that she'd forgotten entirely about eating. Huh. She wondered if he was still alive in there… Surprised at the intrusion of the sudden thought, she nearly gagged on the cherry still in her mouth. The fuck was she worrying about that for? She'd shoved him in there thinking he was going to die anyways.

Still though. She wound up leaning in the general direction of the bedroom door, listening for any sign of an angry infected on the other side. Nothing followed except total silence. It dragged on for a couple of minutes before she cursed under her breath.

Hell. If she wanted to do anything about her face or, besides that, have any of her supplies, she was going to have to go in there.

She was going to find out one way or the other.

 **-x-**

He was… he was still alive. The thought came in a slow trickle as alertness returned to him and didn't bring any real relief. At first he couldn't find it in him to even make a sound, but as he was drawn back to the pain coming like a wave over him again he clenched the soft things around him and his body shook in a low moan. The persistent voice of his instinct hissed that it hurt because he was still _alive_ and all he had to do was keep surviving, but it was quieter than normal.

He hadn't slept, not really. Only spent an amount of time that he couldn't tell slipping in and out of awareness, trying to hold it off. He… he couldn't sleep. Couldn't. _She_ would kill him if he did. She…?

There was a rattling noise at the entrance to his nest room. He startled so hard that he nearly hit the solid frame above him. Woman prey! That sound clicked into place every memory of what had happened and how he'd gotten back here.

The entrance cracked open and he could see the shadow of her stepping in like it was nothing. Before she was even in, her scent saturated the place. Exactly on cue the anger and bloodlust welled up fresh in his gut. Despite the fact that he felt absolutely sick, he was _starving_. It was so hard not to make a sound, not to move a muscle, but maybe she would forget that he was even there.

That hope disappeared as he watched her feet come closer and closer. This time, he couldn't stop the snarl that tore its way past his teeth. It sounded surprisingly convincing, for the state that he was in. She even stopped in her tracks for a few seconds. But he just didn't have the strength to keep it up.

The next thing that he saw was a pair of boots directly in front of his pile and he gasped. Had he really not noticed her coming this close? He was so dazed still. The growl that came from him was more reflex than anything even when she lowered herself to stare into the crawlspace. Studying him. Discomfort made him squirm, but not quite as much as before, when he'd attacked her. Panting, he shifted himself the best he could to cover himself with the soft things.

He had… to stay awake.

Whines started to escape, before he roughly bit into his lip. He couldn't do that. Letting her hear that was to show weakness and it would cost him his life.

Her stance… wasn't aggressive though. She didn't look angry, or make any move to… to stab him again or attack him with her firestick, or anything like that at all. Slowly, at the lack of immediate danger that he could see, his guard began to ease, just a little.

She was so close, though. So, so close. Had to be an arm's length at most. He was sure that he could simply reach out, sink his claws deep into her and drag her in. His mind was bringing up beautiful, vivid images of it already. How her blood would spill from her, bright and red and warm.

 _Need it. Need to kill, need her blood. Need it_ ** _now_ **_-_

No. He… he couldn't. The primal need in him screamed _why_ , that he had to have it. But with the bare shred of ration left in him knew that it… it wasn't time yet. It felt _wrong_ to pull back the hand that he'd gradually started reaching out without realizing. His claws caught on something as he did, but it hardly registered. Until, that was, the woman prey visibly startled and, with a sharp muttering sound, yanked back.

The abrupt, violent motion sparked the aggression right back into him. A snarl issued and, reacting the first way his scattered thoughts said to, he pulled back on whatever this thing was. He might not be able to hurt her but he can at least take this thing that she wanted! His blood started to race as that infuriating muttering of hers intensified and she struggled for the… the strap that he'd caught back. His teeth bared and he latched onto the thing as hard as he could in his state. He… he had to have this! There wasn't much sense in it but it made him angry, desperate, other things that he didn't quite understand, all wrapped up in an overwhelming mix.

She screamed. He shrieked right back.

HE HATED THIS! Hated that he couldn't satisfy the hunger threatening to tear him apart, hated that even after he'd hurt her this prey was still somehow _stronger_ , hated that he couldn't even take _this_ thing, hated that… he was dying, hated… hated…

He was choking. He felt like he was choking. That only panicked him more and he drew in a sharp breath that came in a strange sound. Something pricked at the corners of his eyes. Oh. Oh no oh no oh-

The woman prey actually paused, for only a second, before yanking forward so hard that it actually dragged him partway out from his nest while he was too exhausted to resist. NO! Why couldn't he stop this, why was this happening, why, why, **_WHY_ **?! He screamed again, bared his teeth up at her, swiped out and missed but none of it could even stop the _tears_ streaming down his face. He could taste salt even as he turned his face up and showed her his teeth. She saw, he knew she could see.

And she recoiled. Like she'd been struck he watched her stumble over her feet backwards and he could see what looked like shock register over her face. For the first time since he'd seen her, he thought that she might actually look afraid.

He was left furious and bewildered as she continued backing up until she was nearly in the entrance, clutching tight the thing that she'd managed to free from him. He panted raggedly, struggled with a soft thing wrapped around him to look up at her again.

He shrieked. She staggered the rest of the way out and slammed the entrance.

 **-x-**

The Hunter could have his shitty apartment. Skyler was getting the fuck out of here.

On her way storming through the living room, she stopped only to retrieve her assault rifle and give the World's Shittiest Couch a firm kick as she did so, just because she hated it so much. She slung her pack over her shoulder as she walked, hardly pausing for five seconds just to make sure the little asshole's claws hadn't damaged it too badly, and cursed out the other heavy piece of furniture she'd shoved up against the door as she put her shoulder into it.

She was not ready to accept that she'd just witnessed the leaper _crying_. She'd only seen Witches doing that and even then she'd assumed it was a goddamned trap! But that had very clearly been the last thing she'd seen before she'd hightailed it out of there; the kid staring up at her with what was visible of his hooded face a mess of filth and tears. That was… that was just bullshit and she sure as hell didn't want to think about what it meant.

Just about the second that she got the door open she was greeted by a squalling common that had been snooping around out there. Almost immediately, she destroyed most of its face with a short burst from her clip. The sound drew two others meandering the alley, but she hardly cared and dispatched them in similarly sloppy fashion. Well. At least she knew she could still handle this. Leaper hadn't changed her ability to do her job.

She took up a fast jog down the alley, in farther away from the main road. She remembered that red arrow, and that safe room couldn't be that far. Or hell, a secure cardboard box would have been good enough right then. As long as it got her the fuck away from what she'd left in the flat so that she could stop and think. She felt like she was going to scream if she couldn't.

It seemed like today was just her lucky day, because towards where the alley came to a bend on another side street, she caught sight of another blessed red arrow directing her towards her door. "Well. Maybe I used up all the shitty luck yesterday," she grumbled to herself, bitterly. She could hope, anyways.

Any infected down that stretch that were unlucky enough to cross her path found out that she was being generous with her ammo that day, although one did manage to get in close enough to meet the butt of her gun. She bashed it in until she was sure that it was dead, ignoring the throb in her injured hand.

Skyler was doing great. She was doing just fine, and she was most definitely not feeling fucking sorry for the brain-fried infected that had given her the mauling of her lifetime and had taken her goddamned _eye_. And… that she'd then left there bleeding to death. What the hell else was she supposed to do?! He was a murder machine that had tried to kill her and would again given a chance and two seconds!

Maybe fifteen minutes passed. Fifteen minutes of freezing in the damp February wind before she realized that, following the last arrow, she was staring down a narrow corridor at a secure steel door just up a small flight of stairs. After a moment of balking, she had to laugh, harsh and humorless. _That_? That was as far as she would have had to go to get to safety. Who really knew, though. Hunters were infamous for being persistent stalkers, and she doubted that the kid was any different.

 _Will you stop. Thinking about that._

Whatever, all that mattered was that she'd finally found it. She practically tore the door open and rushed inside, doing a quick visual scan to check for anything lurking before slamming it shut with a massive groan of relief. She let herself sag down against the inside until she was sitting down on the floor with her head back. Her heart pounded and she was feeling fit to pass out again. Christ. All the running around in this shape was going to be the end of her.

It took a while before she could actually be assed to take a look around. She might not have been entirely wrong about the "cardboard box" thing, this place was so small. It looked like it had probably been converted from a storage unit built onto the building. There was room to sleep maybe four if they were packed in pretty tight, but the important part was that it had a door on it, and the table along the wall looked like it even had a box with some ammunition left over.

"Goodie," she "enthused" exhaustedly, finally hauling herself up to check it out. It looked to be mostly shells that she couldn't use but, didn't her luck just keep getting better, at least one box of the caliber that she needed and a singular, full, first aid kit. She could sure as hell use that. The out-of-the-way location had probably ensured that not many people had passed through here, so it hadn't been picked entirely clean.

As she stuffed the boxes of bullets into her own pack along with the medical supplies, her gaze drifted over the bits of graffiti left by whoever had passed through here before. It appeared to have been mostly students from the campus, some of them writing down names of companions who hadn't made it which was depressing, others seemingly writing just to pass the time.

"THEY'RE BURNING THE STUDENT LOAN RECORDS", she read, and couldn't help but smirk. A couple of replies were scrawled out under it, to the tune of, "WE ARE FREE", and "Praise all that is holy".

"RIP Professor Alexander. I'll always remember your sociology class. :(", she read further, signed by a "Molly McLellan".

"I'm going to miss this place. Feel like I just got here and am already leaving. Goodbye UNH, and good luck to all of the friends that I've made! I hope we meet again soon." "A."...

…"Lamb". Holy shit.

Okay. Okay, so she was definitely thinking about it. Skyler let out a low groan of frustration and thudded her fists ineffectually against the table.

Well, let's think about it a little more then. As much as the thought sucked, she was feeling pretty shitty. It wouldn't have been bothering her now if she wasn't. These were… these were supposed to be brainless things that did nothing but slaughter people and didn't stop for anything, and… and didn't fucking _cry_ when they were hurt or afraid. That was how he'd looked; he'd looked hurt, and he'd looked scared, and she'd left him there like that. She wasn't sure she would have treated dogs that way. She meant. Dogs were pretty great, but her point still stood. She could have at least killed him and made sure he wouldn't be stuck slowly dying like that after she left.

After a while of just standing there staring at the wall of messages, Skyler let out a long sigh before turning back for the door.

 _For fuck's sake._

Looked like she was trudging back through the cold to either shoot a Hunter in the head or… something else. She didn't know. She guessed she could decide on the way.


	5. Monster

A/N: Oh god. I can't believe it's been a literal year and I'm posting the other (former) half of that last chapter. Listen, life stuff got entirely out of control and both nearly killed me and destroyed my writing ability for a while. Anyways, happy Halloween folks!

* * *

 **-x-**

It turned out that the crying was nearly as bad as being consumed by the rage, and once it had started was just as impossible to stop. He'd thought that it would be over once the woman prey had left him. At least then he could die without an intruder in his safest spot, and without the rising frustration of not being able to get his teeth into her grating at him. But somehow, as soon as he'd heard her noisily flee, it had just… built. And built and built until it felt like his body was too small and too tight to hold in all of the hate and the fear and the sick feelings that he didn't know how to name and it exploded.

He'd lashed out with claws and teeth until the soft things he'd surrounded himself with were ripped into pieces. Screamed until his throat was raw like he didn't care how many Others heard or if they found him by it. Thrashed and clawed and wrapped his arms tight around his own aching body as if somehow that would contain it and then when his body was too exhausted for that just swayed, whined, cried. Maybe this was what happened to the Crying Ones. He didn't know and didn't care.

He didn't understand. Didn't understand this. The rages were near-painful with their intensity, but at least they were familiar. His muddled brain tried to make some sense out of the chaos and his thoughts seemed to settle on her again. That woman prey.

She… she'd done this to him. He was infuriated at that. And then she'd just… left? That was good though, right? The shudders started coming back over him.

She'd just left him here to die, slowly and helplessly. Even though all he knew was fighting for his life and always, always thinking that he could die… he still didn't want to die all by himself.

He didn't think that he could even move anymore by the time that he was done. The only thing keeping him still awake was how much this hurt, in every way possible.

Until, that was, he heard the outside entrance opening up. No matter how sure he'd been that he didn't care if the Others found him, he couldn't help tensing and growling, thinking of what they would do to him. But… wait. Slowly he realized that they didn't open entrances that way. So that had to be-

And then, as if on cue, her scent washed in. Her. _Her_. She'd come back. His claws clenched and blood welled under them into his hands as he listened to the footsteps. His insides boiled. And then… she stopped.

No. _No! She wasn't just going to walk away_ , she didn't get to do this to him and then- then _forget_ about it! It wasn't **right** , he wasn't going to let her-!

It was the only thing he could do. He _screamed_. And then, when that didn't get an immediate result, he screamed again, long and ragged, even though by now he felt like even his throat was going to tear. She was going to know. She was going to know that he was still in here.

His bloodied, cracked lips bared over his teeth when, finally, he heard the approaching noise. _Good_. He didn't know if it was the pain, or the heat burning over him, or the prey scent flooding him but he felt dizzied, manic with the tangle of rushed feelings and thoughts driving him all at once. He could feel the rapid, fluttery beat of his own pulse all the way to his fingertips. He had to-!

More screaming. Always more screaming and it hurt so so bad and his senses were buzzing so much that he couldn't tell if it was coming from inside or out and his body wouldn't, couldn't even shift, but it did. He _made_ it. One clawing inch at a time, hot blood down his belly and hot tears down his face.

This prey was going to face him, and see that he was still alive, and still angry. The entrance opened.

 **-x-**

"For the love of fuck you have got to be kidding me."

As Skyler had pulled open the door she'd been greeted by the sound of tortured, uneven panting and some scuffling, a pretty clear indicator of some life left in there after all, which might've been a little impressive in its own right. But there was no way. There was no way that, after everything, this kid was _still standing_. Out of sheer "what in the fuck" she nearly aimed her firearm, and then lowered it again, and then decided to keep it close at hand anyways just in case.

Okay, so. Maybe _standing_ was a little bit of an overstatement. What he was doing was closer to 'bracing himself for dear life against the bedpost', one arm clamped around his middle, and from how utterly stock-still he was other than the shallow rise and fall of his chest she was pretty sure he might have just passed out like that. But after spending a little over a day or so with a couple of serious injuries, that was… well, it was something.

She gave a slow, disbelieving shake of her head and paced just a step closer to get a better look. Was she impressed? Maybe just a little. "Shit, kid. You're as stubborn as. Well. Me." Vaguely she wondered which it was more of, any sort of drive to live within the infected or his body being too stubborn to just let him die.

Skyler rubbed at the bandages on the side of her face. Coming back here had been a stupid idea. Then again at least half of what she did was probably a stupid idea, so she guessed she'd see how this was going to go.

Her feet scuffed the filthy carpet as she made a slow circle around the room, more than definitely not putting off any further action. This whole room smelled like sweat and blood. Maybe that was what was knotting up her stomach. The entire time she watched the Hunter; the tremble in what she knew were powerful limbs, the catch in his breath. There was no obvious reaction on his part. She let out a slow breath.

"You know what I did on the way over here, kid? I flipped a goddamn coin. And honestly? It came up on coming back here and putting you out of your damn misery." Like he understood or cared. "But, you know. There's this thing my sis used to talk about. Like, how while you're waiting on the coin to come down, you realize what it actually was you were hoping it'd come out on. And, as it turns out, for some godforsaken reason, I feel really shitty about that happening."

Nothing from the Hunter. Maybe it was too late after all. Only one way to find out, she guessed. Skyler frowned. Slowly edged in closer, considered that just _possibly_ this wasn't a great plan, and then closer still until she was a little closer than an arm's length. Testing.

"You wanna live, kid?" she asked, "You wanna-"

An awful _scream_ caught her off-guard, and she nearly fell back and busted her ass. Holy _shit_! Before she could actually get out of striking distance she saw the infected's head shoot up, teeth exposed in a grimace of fury. She could still see the tear tracks cut down what was exposed of his face.

His clawed fingers, the ones that had been holding his stomach wound and were saturated in his own blood, streaked down her face as he growled not a few inches away from her, and lingered there very _purposely_. She could feel the Hunter's breath as she was briefly rooted out of shock, hot and insistent. And then, after that moment, he sagged back towards the floor, first onto his knees and then into a gasping huddle.

Her heart hammered for a minute more as she stared down at him. She could feel the marks left smeared onto her face, from her good eye down to her cheek. She wiped her cheek with a couple of fingers and looked down at the blood, and then again to him as she waited for her breath to stop coming in short pants.

"...Good."

With that taken care of, she shrugged the pack off of her shoulder and began unwadding the collected medical supplies onto the bed. "Now you're gonna have to bear with me here. I can't say I totally know what I'm doing here. My sister saved people. _I_ kill them." She was sure this was about to be a ton of fun.

 **-x-**

This had to be it. He was going to die, and he was _not going to be afraid_. He **wasn't**. It wasn't working. No matter how much he told himself that, it wouldn't stop.

Despite the shrieking insistence that he not even flinch, his heart thudded unevenly at the dim awareness of the woman prey lowering herself to the floor beside him. The warring between _fight_ and _flee_ , neither of which he could actually _do_ , and the strange sensation of everything seeming to move in a sickening sort of slow motion made him feel like throwing up. Had there ever even been anything in his stomach? Couldn't remember.

Hands. He could feel _hands_ on him, touching him, dragging him back. No. This was BAD! He'd never been handled this way before, and not by- by prey. Everything about it felt wrong.

He wanted to stop this. He really did. But he'd reached a point where everything was just… shut off. It was like his display had sapped everything out of him, and absolutely everything felt broken-down. There was another feeling, too, unfamiliar enough that he couldn't even name it at first. He felt… cold? That was it. His body felt _cold_. He'd never thought that the absence of the constant fever burning him up from the inside would be so jarring, so… scary.

In panic that he couldn't _do anything_ , his eyes darted, unfocused, unable to rest on any one thing for long. The dark, formless shapes shifting at the edges of his vision, the woman prey… something appealingly shiny dangling from around her neck. It was there that he fixated, maybe just because everything else was terrifying. Soft clinking noises and a nice, soothing back and forth swinging motion. This was… it was good. In those moments he couldn't, didn't want to take his attention off of the objects. Just let him have this one nice thing.

His focus was broken though when he realized that what she was doing was starting to do was to straddle him. She was _pinning_ him. Like he was the prey, and not her. **Wrong**. He had to show how angry he was, how much he hated this! Instead, the sound that he made was probably the most pathetic attempt at a scream that had ever left him. He was going to **kill her**. It didn't matter that he couldn't, he just had to.

Blankness.

 **-x-**

Alright, Skyler. Just play it cool. It was entirely likely that this creature was still plenty capable of hurting her pretty bad, and she wasn't going to underestimate it. Ah, hell. This was so, so weird. She'd never actually been this close to one of these things before. Like. She'd been grabbed before, sure, but that was a pretty different ballpark from practically going cowgirl. The biggest thing working in her favor was really that his bouts of consciousness seemed brief at best.

In any case though, the first thing she was going to do was make sure those fucking claws were out of the way. Simple enough, at least, given the shredded rags they were more or less surrounded with. There was some harsh, rapid breathing as she made sure the Hunter's arms were bound good and tight behind his back but little else, although she suspected he'd be throwing a fit if he woke up to this.

"Nngh!" she gritted out in a wholehearted effort to yank down the zipper of the kid's nasty-ass sweatshirt. Grossly enough, the teeth were so gummed up with blood and gunk that it was stuck pretty firmly in place. After a few pulls, the last of which practically lifted his limp body off the floor, the zipper broke in her hand. "Ah. Oops," she mumbled and flicked the bit of metal across the room.

By the time that she looked back, that pair of yellow eyes was staring back at her. Shit.

At first, no sound came out of him. He seemed to take a second to test his wrists, and realize that there was something restricting them, and that was when she saw him drawing in breath for another scream.

Maybe it was just because she was thoroughly done with wrestling with him, but Skyler found herself throwing up her hands and pulling back. "No no, hold up-!" Obviously that wasn't going to stop him. Uh. Quickly she thought of how shortly before he'd seemed oddly fascinated by the sway of her dog tags, for whatever reason _that_ might be, and half just to see what would happen, took them off and dangled them forward. Amazingly, he actually did trail off, even if she had a suspicion it was mostly out of bewilderment. "Ha. That's right. I look like an idiot, don't I?"

Regardless, she did watch his eyes follow the path of the chain and, maybe she was imagining things but it seemed almost as if he were very purposely putting his focus there instead of on what was happening. Not that she could say she'd blame him. She inhaled deeply, which proved to be a bad idea given the odor in there, and carefully as she could held the tags to one of the kid's bound hands. It was instantaneous. His fingers closed around them and somehow the look he gave up at her managed to be utterly disbelieving. That sick feeling twinged her gut again.

"Uh… yeah. You hang onto that."

Oh god, he was still looking at her. What was that supposed to mean? This close up, his eyes were freaky as fuck, too. They weren't really yellow, like she'd kind of thought. More that she could see a washed-out blue or grey iris, with some reflective, yellowish film over them. It reminded her a little of that one game with the underwater city, which just brought up the image of this kid wandering around singing about roses and angels and gave her the heebie-jeebies.

Christ. She should _really_ just get this over with before she stopped to think too hard.

 **-x-**

But _why_? The Hunter was still trying to wrap his head around what had happened. What reason did this woman prey have to give him something? She… she had hurt him. He'd done the same to her, and he did still know that meant she shouldn't be doing this. Had to be a trap. But she already had him prone and helpless, so? It hurt his head just thinking about it.

Even still. Just having something to clutch was easing, to some degree. Weak as he was, there was still a fire burning through his blood making him want to fight as much as the panic did, and this cooled just a little of it. It was… it was nice. Like a pressure being relieved. His thumb rubbed against the smoothness and, despite everything, he started drifting back off. There was some bleary, partially formed thought, though. That somehow maybe if he could just keep still, he might not be hurt any more.

He was torn out of his lull though when his covering was shoved up. Nnno! The urge to cover his wounds was fierce and he did his best to curl in at the waist, fresh alarm spiking through him. But no attack came, leaving him panting and with teeth bared but confused. In fact, the woman prey seemed to be hesitating to go any farther.

And _that_ was what was frustrating. Everything he knew insisted that she should be shrieking and furious and killing him horribly right now. It's what the instinct would have been telling _him_ to do. The irrational urge to _stop this_ by striking out hit him. This felt so wrong. Why wasn't she _angry_?! His claws twitched, his teeth bared, and- and he could feel his eyes stinging again. He fought it hard, not even knowing what made him feel like crying.

And then he utterly froze up when a single drop of something hit his cheek.

 **-x-**

"Ah god, wait! You didn't see anything! Stop looking at me like that, that wasn't-!" It was too late, though. The kid's eyes had gone dinnerplate-wide, even as she blanched and shook her head. "Nope. Nope, you have got this- you have got this entirely wrong. I am the _biggest_ badass, I wasn't doing what you think I was doing-!"

Something shifted gradually in his expression. An easing, or maybe vague comprehension. At the very least, it didn't look quite as panicked or choked with anger. _Fuck_ though. She couldn't believe this had actually made her _tear up_. Or that he would react to it. That seemed like something that required at least a couple of brain cells.

"Yeah. Well," she finally mumbled. She ripped open the top of one of the pre-packaged sanitary wipes, releasing a sharp alcoholic smell. "Enjoy it while you can. You're about to hate me anyways."

The injuries weren't exactly hard to make out against the pasty wash of his belly and… yeesh, the whole thing sure wasn't pretty. Both of the stab wounds were angrily red and inflamed, incredibly painful looking and probably infected already. Besides that, this looked to be far from the first injury he'd sustained, and his filthy skin was marred with disfiguring blemishes. His ribs stood out harshly.

Her tongue clicked while she wiped down what was more than definitely a job for more than a few glorified hand wipes. "Shit, kid. You need an _entire_ damn bath. Not that I'm gonna be the one to give it to you."

Seemingly in answer he hissed, though she was sure it was more at the sting. And well, he was definitely about to find out that wasn't the worst of it. Again his fingers flexed, and after a second she realized that he was clutching her tags again. Oh god, nope. Fuck that lump stuck in her throat. There was a second where she was compelled to pause before starting in on the real deal and give him another once-over. He was panting, his entire body quivering with trembles, and she could feel a rapid, thready pulse under her fingers. So, basically, about as ready as he could possibly be. Better get this done before anything got _worse_.

"Sure hope you're ready, kid. I didn't go through all this trouble to have you decide to die on me."

Skyler dug the needle into the infected's skin.

 **-x-**

What was happening- **What was happening to him**?! At first all he could comprehend was pain, so much that he couldn't even shriek. He couldn't even _think_ to connect this agony with its cause. His overwrought brain scrambled to come up with an explanation from the fragmented bits that he could process. It was in that moment he became fixed with a complete certainty: _He was being attacked by something with teeth_.

Horror overtook him. He could see it. Some shifting, uncertain mass over him that he couldn't describe if he tried, and all that he knew was that it looked like terror; filled with eyes and teeth and sharp things and things he couldn't possibly imagine. _Monster_.

Maybe he was screaming now. Didn't know. His senses were swallowed up. Thrash, fight, anything. Had to kill it. Had to get away. It was holding him down!

The awareness of something small and smooth in his palm came to him suddenly, despite everything. The Hunter gasped for breath, shook his head in what he was very vaguely aware was denial. This- this wasn't here. This wasn't real. That didn't make it go away, though.

The monster dug into his stomach again. NOT REAL!

Again. He felt whatever was holding his wrists give way. A yell, coming from him or maybe it was the monster. Mindlessly he swiped out, before desperately trying to cover up his wounds from the biting. Blindly he grabbed over his belly, but he didn't understand. Where were- where were his injuries? What had the monster-?

 _Woman prey?_ She was there, and…

The exhaustion and the pain were too much for him. His eyes rolled, and the last thing that he was aware of was the smooth thing still clutched in his hand before he lapsed again into unconsciousness.


	6. A Monster Calls

**-x-**

"Alright, kid. You've done, uh… well enough. Haven't died, at least, surprisingly. Think it's about time to say goodbye though. This is where we part ways and all. Be a good leaper, try not to murder too many people. Eat your vegetables. Or... not, I don't fucking know. Nice knowing you, I guess."

Fucking. Useless. It still didn't feel goddamn right. Skyler scrubbed her face with her palms, sitting across the room and staring in at the literal "monster under the bed". He was still dead-ass asleep, of course. An entire day had passed since she'd sewn up his stomach, and she'd hardly seen him actively stir since then. It was like his body knew that it had a minute to actually rest now and had promptly knocked the hell out. And. She'd looked at him.

She meant, well, shit. Once he seemed to be somewhat less touch-and-go, it had occurred to her that it wasn't every day she had the chance to see one of the Hunters without the hood. She probably wasn't going to get another chance like this without messing with dead stuff. Maybe she'd wind up with something informative to tell to folks back on base, provided she survived this adventure. "Just a quick look couldn't hurt" was the mantra of many a person who got their eye taken out seconds later, but hey, that was probably why she was already missing one of those now, wasn't it? Ha ha.

It had been… disturbingly easy to see the young man from the ID photo, really. She supposed she'd sort of been expecting the infection to have rendered him unrecognizable, but parts were still there. He still had that sort of round face shape, matted hair recognizably wavy. She remembered thinking he had almost absurdly thick eyelashes, considering. It was hard to mesh that image with the mess of grime and scratches covering it now, not to mention the damn _teeth_. This was other people's blood he was covered in, not that she had much room to talk. There was just something way more depressing about seeing it up close and putting a face to it.

What the hell _else_ was she supposed to do, though? She'd done just about everything she reasonably could in the situation, even if she really shouldn't have, and given the kid the best chance she could throw at him. She'd bandaged over the stitch job, hauled his dead weight back into his pillow fort… Hell, she'd even managed to prop his head up enough to get him to take some water, though he never did seem to really wake up. He could be bleeding internally or something, in which case this was out of her scope of knowledge anyways, but still. It was all a whole lot of effort for an infected that would go back to trying to eat her eyeballs given half a chance. If anything, she was being too generous here.

Was it because anything she could think to say sounded kind of lackluster? Even if it didn't actually matter any, it felt better to not just sort of stand there dumbly. After mulling it over for a bit, she settled on,

"I mean. Good luck, then. You're definitely gonna need it."

She picked herself up from the floor and shuffled out across the bloodstained carpet towards the last few rays of light streaming in through the front

 **-x-**

Dreams came and went. Brief, fleeting flashes of pain, hands on him. Phantom sounds and images like the impression left in his eyes after looking at a too-bright light. Nothing distinct enough to pick out between stretches of deep, deep sleep.

There was an unsettling stillness as he slowly started to come to, an entire world away from the chaos he vaguely remembered. Too still. Too quiet. The idea bubbled up that _maybe he'd actually died_ , and this was what being dead was like. Distantly he could feel his heart give an uneven thump of worry. Could he move? His face wrinkled and his claws flexed. That was some relief, at least. He opened his eyes.

It took some time for him, groggy as his thoughts were upon waking up, to start taking in details. He was… alone. And he still _hurt_. Beyond the throbbing of his most recent injuries, he could still feel the steady ache bone-deep in his body that he couldn't ever remember leaving him, not to mention the endless emptiness in his belly telling him that he was hungrier than anything and _had to eat_. An icy pang of dread and panic raced through his nerves. Oh no. Did things keep hurting after they died? Could he not get away from it even by being dead? From the best his broken mind could tell, dead meant over, done, when something stopped fighting so he could continue gleefully tearing it apart under tooth and claw, the sharp red tang of blood filling his nose and rich with the excitement of his kill-

Shh. This was important. Was he really dead? It was difficult for him to use that kind of logic, especially once an idea had taken hold, but once the initial anxiety passed, he… didn't think so.

So then what _had_ happened? His breath came in short pants as he tried to sit up, cutting off into a sudden whine when it turned out that he was back in his nested soft things and hit his head into the structure over him. He remembered flashes of what he'd been feeling. Hurt, a lot of hurt. Terror.

 _Monster._

Carefully he slid a hand under his covering, feeling something there. Some kind of fabric? He lifted the edge of his top just enough to see, and oddly enough he recognized it. It was the same sort of cloth the woman prey had covered her hurt eye in.

There were hints here, he knew. The pieces didn't fall into place easy, but he was trying. He'd spent so much of these past days confused, which was a near-constant, but this was different. Something about this left him more frustrated than ever, angry and floundering. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to understand any of the answers if he had them, but part of him craved them anyways, so something would at least make _sense_. It made his head ache trying to think about this. He let out a soft groan as he dragged himself out into the open. Unconsciously, before he even realized it was there, he started thumbing over the trinket still clutched in his hand. With that, at least one thing finally clicked.

She- the woman prey… She'd done this. The same way that she'd stabbed him and nearly killed him, she'd fixed the same wounds, too. And now she was gone again. His claws tangled underneath him and he growled. He couldn't get any further than that. _Why_ would she have done that? He knew what "help" was, or at least the concept of it, but she had no reason to give it. She wasn't even _Sister_. He didn't know anything.

Suddenly feeling the restless need to move, he tested whether he could bear his weight on all fours. He was shaky, still felt awfully weak, but he managed it. Huffing through his nose, he padded carefully out of his nest room. Her scent still lingered here, not quite old yet. Fresh enough to follow and hunt her down by, probably.

Separated from the actual maddening presence of _clean_ prey, it was easier to wonder whether he should actually do that. Insistent as the raw want in his stomach was, his wounds gave a fresh throb, reminding him of what had happened when he tried to take down this prey in particular. She was… she was dangerous. He could feel it radiating off of her practically like he could from an Other. But the predator in him found that tantalizingly exciting, too.

Resting, he let out a deep breath and leaned back into one of the perches in the wide room. He's always hated this thing. It smelled funny and something about the color was irritating enough to make him want to tear it to shreds.

He just… needed a while to try to

 **-x-**

Hot blood sluiced down Skyler's front in thick pumps of arterial spray, soaking her vest and knife arm. The common still weakly scrabbled for her despite the ragged gash across its neck but very quickly its own rapid heart rate was killing it. She kicked it away from her where it sagged, having managed to get her closed in against an alley wall.

"Motherfucker," she gritted out, her heart still pounding. She hadn't even had time to get her rifle up, and these things weren't precisely _sneaky_. Getting used to this new lack of depth perception and field of vision was a bitch.

Okay. This was going to be fine, though. She knew the steps she had to take. How hard could it possibly be to find a working shortwave? Once she'd relayed in her position, all she had to do was find someplace secure enough to hold out until extraction. That was totally a feasible task that was not going to get her killed. If she wasn't above corpse robbing, she could even check if any of her comrades' radios had made it, but. Eugh. She cringed at the memory of the state they'd been in. Unlikely.

Alright Skyler, think. Where in an unfamiliar city might have a transmitter? Did… did Radioshack actually sell radios anymore? It'd help if she had any clue where the hell anything was. Maybe she could get Adrian back there to give her a campus tour.

Ohh, that was a bad joke. Why would she do that to herself?

There seriously wasn't any time to think about that, either. If she was going to be poking around, she had to be especially damn careful. Some of the specials were damn good at getting the drop on someone. And considering how few of the commons were out in the open, it seemed entirely likely that this was… something's turf. She just hoped it wasn't another damn Tank. They were supposed to be few and far between, but with the kind of luck she had, she ought to enter the shit lottery.

"So. Shopping list," she mumbled to herself. "One transmitter. Water'd be nice. Someplace to sleep. Flour, sugar, milk and eggs. Basic Walmart run."

Crossing the street like this was enough to make her paranoid, enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck. Already she felt open, exposed, her field of vision too close. She never actually felt like she was _alone_. She squinted as she scanned behind abandoned vehicles, down dark side streets, along the rooftops.

"Yeah, well. You should see what happened to the last guy," she grumbled out loud to nothing in particular.

Skyler kept her rifle close. Let them try to fuck with her; she was really not in the

 **-x-**

However much it might still hurt, the Hunter felt much, much better now that he was able to move, the excitement coursing through him enough to override at least some of the ache. He was _hunting_. He'd been sure that was never going to happen again. It didn't matter that he was still weak, he felt so ferally giddy he half-thought he could take on anything, despite the quiver in his limbs. Now he could fill himself with the pounding thrill of a chase, stalk and maim and placate his bloodlust instead of having to deal with… whatever that sickening torrent of feelings he'd been trapped inside of his nest with. He just had to find something that'd satisfy what he needed.

There was a soft clinking sound as he began creeping forward again. Instinctively he inhaled, looking down at the "gift". He quickly stuffed it into one of his pockets. Ignore that now. More important things.

The weak Others weren't enough for that itch, not really. They were too far gone, too taken with sickness to know fear. Besides that, there was a deep urgency that couldn't be appeased by anything _Other_. If that was the only option he had, though, he would take it.

A snarl tore free from his throat and he started to raise as he passed a small gaggle of them milling around a pile of dried bone and skin far too old to be appealing, but he shook himself and passed. These ones were hardly even aware of his presence, blindly drawn to whatever trace of scent was left. There was no real thrill in that. He quickened his pace as much as he could, given that he'd still been bleary since waking up.

He was caught in one of those semi-dazes when he was abruptly jarred from it by the sound of an Other snorting at him in investigation, probably noticing his weakened state. _Good_. He bit his tongue right up until it made the _stupid_ decision to attack. He was waiting, and bowled it over as it rushed him.

Its legs went out from under it and a sharp crack sounded as its head hit the ground hard. It squalled and flinched, only for a moment. He knew perfectly well that unless it was close to a killing blow the ones like him, even these ones, didn't stop for pain. It struggled to right itself, but by then he was already on top and his heart was soaring. More screaming, still trying to resist, to scratch at his face even as he began to shred into its chest. **Yes**. More of this, this was what he wanted! He held back on the killing bite for as long as he could push himself to, wanting this feeling to last as long as possible.

Eventually hunger overrode him and he finally sank into the arc of its throat. Choking, dying sounds. Spurts of too-hot blood into his mouth, sick but still blood nonetheless. Covering him as it should. A slick chunk of flesh went down his throat before it'd even stopped moving. He shrieked himself to the sky, a handful of torn entrails in either fist. A couple more dumb ones fled. They might not know fear, but they had at least some ability to pick their fights.

After spending a bit satisfying the worst of the hunger, he snorted at the realization that there was nothing else to sate himself on. He couldn't have that. The past days still grated on him, and he needed to let this _out_ somehow. Before he realized it, his hand was clenching in his pocket. Around something smooth.

There was still something else here. And he could _hurt_ her now.

His dry, dirty lips turned up into something resembling a grin.

 **-x-**

"Get it! **Fucking get it**!"

Skyler's shriek was practically drowned out from her own ears by the roar of the crowd before her and continuous gunfire. She'd bottlenecked herself on the stairwell, leaving room only to her front and side for the infected to come rushing at her. That was the issue though: She was cornered.

It had happened dizzyingly quickly. The tattered sheet proclaiming, "SUPPLIES! TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED!" affixed to the outside of the housing had warranted a look, and… it turned out that the area was very much _not_ barren of lesser infected, but rather that they had clustered themselves in spaces out of the open. It hadn't taken much to notify every damn tenant of the building that she was there, either. Ring ring, dinner. Jesus absolute fuck.

A short burst of assault rifle fire destroyed half the face of a girl in what looked like a pajama shirt and yoga pants. She tumbled back down the stairs, briefly tripping the ones behind her, not that it stopped them. In seconds they were already climbing over the newest corpse on the pile, scrabbling like wild goddamn animals. That was to say nothing of the ones trampling in from the upper floors. She had to reload, with her _last box of bullets_. Give her just two fucking seconds. Of course, they didn't work that way, but smashing the closest in the face with the butt of her rifle to send it pitching backwards at least gave her time. It wasn't easy, considering she was sweating enough her fingers were slick with it.

The thought occurred to her that this wasn't sustainable; she was going to run out of bullets far before she ran out of things for bullets to enter, from the looks of it. Well, fuck. Adrenaline pounded as she came to terms with the fact that this really looked like it could be it. It wasn't like her to lay back like a reasonable person and let this happen, though. She was still a goddamn badass, and she was going to go out like one, even if these guys were the only ones to see it.

A slow, sharp smile crossed her face as she patted the weight of her last remaining molly and the lighter in her pocket.

 **-x-**

He could hear the sounds. It had to be her. _He knew where she was now._ It quickened his steps, to the point that he all but forgot about his soreness, even as warmth leaked into his stomach fabric. The sounds of a fight both enraged and enticed him so that he was already wild. They were prey sounds, and he had to stop them.

The smell of many Others in one place reached him, clustered around what had to be food. This was both exciting and brought another growl up through him. No, this prey was… she was _his_. The instinct whispered it to him, and he could feel it bone-deep. None of them could have her. Even here he could see them starting to converge, following the same signs of life as him.

Somewhere he could even scent _smart Others_ , which was especially stressful. Would they come out after the lure of prey? He wasn't quite mindless enough even now to think he could take them in this state. It didn't deter him, though. The allure of unchanged flesh was strong.

And the closer he got, the more urgent the need driving him became. It was a pull, a call. Burning hot as the fever.

He had to hurry. He was getting so close. _His._

 **-x-**

The stair landing that the cocktail shattered on was engulfed almost instantly, helped along by the mass of bodies clustered around it. Clothes, interestingly enough, were quite flammable, and the commons had packed themselves in so tightly in an attempt to get at her that once a couple were caught by the ignition, within the span of less than a minute they all were. And man. These things didn't stop for much, but a little fire sure was something. The sound was ungodly, like a cross between a dying animal and exactly what she'd imagined someone being burned at the stake would sound like. Some of them still reached for her, others beat and pulled at their own clothes, hair, skin in a futile attempt to remove the flames.

Close as she was, Skyler was just about knocked back on her ass, falling back into her little corner of stair landing for protection. The rush of heat felt like it was going to bake any of her exposed skin. Even the infected making their way up the stairs were briefly staggered. Considering the old Victorian this housing had been placed in, she doubted it was long for this world, either.

 _Blaze of glory, fuckers._

As she fired down into the amassed infected below her, she supposed it was as good a time as any to get contemplative. Facing imminent death and all. She didn't think she'd be seeing her sister again, no. Even if there were somewhere for her to go to, she had a strong feeling it'd be someplace very different than Lauren. So, hey. Maybe this was just practice.

Smoke filled the corridor, the pungent, acrid kind from burning hair and fabric, with a none-too-pleasant undertone of cooked meat. Skyler choked. Was she screaming? No. She was laughing. And laughing, and laughing.

 _Click_. As her rifle ran out of ammunition, she switched out for her knife. Through the haze she could see an indistinct figure taking up the doorway leading in below. And it was only as it happened to clear enough to allow her to see just what, or _who_ , she was faced with, that she realized this entire damn thing had to be one big, universal middle finger aimed in her direction. She coughed. Spat. Gave one more chuckle as she forced herself into a grin.

"Glad to see you, kid."

 **-x-**

This felt like a dream. A _delusion_ , though he didn't know the word. As furious, as thirsty for blood as he was, the sight managed to stun him.

 _Not real?_ He wondered, but the odor of smoke and blood was overpowering, and the glow of fire was enough to hurt his sensitive eyes.

She was there. Woman prey. Over heaps of dead Others she stood before him, drenched from her head to her foot in blood not her own, as around her everything burned. Too vivid and too terrifying to exist. Not fleeing and not making the move to attack. Grinning. He recognized that she was _grinning_.

Every muscle in his body tensed, strained, begged to propel him forward. He wanted them to. But they didn't. Couldn't. A shriek of frustration wanted to rip its way from his throat, but at that moment, not even that would come. His tenuous grip on reality reeled. **Why**?! Why wasn't he killing her when it was **all that he wanted**?!

Sounds came from her, low and meaningless. She began descending down towards him while behind her, the floor began to fall in. All he could do was growl. Not understanding quite what he was doing, he reached into his pocket.

 **-x-**

"Come on, then, kid. Huh? I'm right here. Came all this way after me. Aren't you gonna get a piece?"

Skyler slowed maybe halfway down the stairwell, the heat blistering at her back as she brandished her knife. It should have figured that the thing to finally creep up on her would be the _one_ infected that she'd left alive. It was probably just the fact that she was becoming dangerously bleary from both the smoke and exhaustion, but… she was almost glad that it's him in particular. Might as well be him as anything else, right? A familiar face.

What the fuck was he doing, though? Her entire body was tensed for the attack even through spasms of coughing, ready to fight back. She'd never known the infected to hold back with their target within reach. It should have been all there was room for in his fried little brain. She threw out her arms in a clear gesture of "here I am", and still the leaper seemed rooted on the spot. It was bizarre. Maybe a little frightening. "Come on-!"

He thrust something forward in her direction, which understandably baffled the fuck out of her. Orange light glinted off of whatever it was clutched in his fist, and her gut took a plunge as she realized _just what it was he was showing her_. She felt disoriented and nauseated, like her legs might go out from under her.

"...The hell did you follow me for?"

 **-x-**

 _ **Leave**_. The Hunter actually shook with the force of so many clashing, contradicting messages rocketing through him. At the same time that he wanted to lash out, to destroy absolutely everything in sight and especially the woman prey who had _done this to him_ until it couldn't bother him anymore, the urge to flee this place was almost as loud. He didn't know just what it was that so made him want to _run_ but he wanted to get as far as he possibly could from here, never look back and maybe never stop. It grated at him. He thought he'd be lost with it. The closest thing he had to something solid was the "gift" wrapped around his wrist, and suddenly it seemed much heavier than it should be.

She took another step down. He exploded into a shriek, lashing out in her direction, both in anger and a warning _not to come any closer_. Another. The aggression that flared up was overwhelming, and yet he _still couldn't make the kill_. He could almost imagine her _beckoning_.

Why had she done this?! Why hadn't she killed him, why had she- why had she done anything to _help_? **What did she want from him**?!

This woman prey... the monster that had killed him and then brought him back, paused. Standing in silhouette against the glow. A cracking, splintering sound, like bone being snapped. And then the world tilted and she disappeared into a shower of collapsing, smoldering debris and smoke.

 **-x-**

Skyler didn't remember hitting the ground, but, uh. That sure was where she was. And in her barely-conscious mind, she was pretty sure that it hurt like fuck. Every ounce of air felt like it had left her lungs, whether that was from inhalation or plunging a couple of flights and hitting a heap of collapsed building. This… this wasn't quite the awe-inspiring exit she'd planned to make. Her eyes widened as she gasped and found herself staring up at the kindling above. She groped into her side holster, remembering the reason she'd come to this fucking place in the first place.

All she could really make out as blackness edged around her vision was a form approaching her prone, beaten-ass body. Stubbornly she held out one arm with her prize, forcing a bloody, pained smirk onto her face.

"Hey kid," she gritted out, "I found my fucking radio."

* * *

A/N: Hopefully my updates will continue to come much more regularly than previously now that I am getting back into my groove. I am also looking for some feedback about how visually easy this is to read! Do I need shorter, more manageable chapters? To change up my formatting? Anything else? Let me know in the reviews and I much appreciate it! 3 ~T


	7. Contact

**-x-**

Something was crushing Skyler's chest. She fought for breath, and that pressure and struggle for air were the most urgent things that started to wake her up. Her lungs were burning. It was suffocating her.

 _Lauren get it off of me-_

It took her a bit to remember that her sister was, in fact, dead. So that meant…

Skyler heard a _growl_ unnervingly close to her ear. Instantaneously her eye slammed open, and she was confronted with the sight of fucking _teeth_. Before she could even curse or scream or whatever she'd been about to do, she tensed and kneed with every bit of the force she could muster. Her knees made contact with a rather firm belly and she was rewarded with a sharp, gasping yelp of pain and the pressure leaving her. She coughed, her chest still aching.

Jesus-absolute-fuck his breath smelled like death! She must have passed out for a minute and the leaper had gotten on top of her. He was at least fifteen feet away now, sagged halfway over, panting and surely in a world of hurt from taking a hard blow to his injured stomach. She frantically reached for her knife, wheezing all the while, and fought her way to her feet.

"I'm not- fucking dead yet! Gonna have to work harder than that for… for-!"

Wait a fucking minute. She… wasn't where she thought she was.

In utter bafflement she briefly looked off to the side, trying to make sense of this. She didn't even have the chance to get her bearings before something struck her hard in the back.

"OUCH! What in the fu-!"

The question of what had just happened was answered when she turned back around, only to see the goddamn Hunter lob another thick book in that general direction, seemingly unwilling to actually get any closer. Fortunately it seemed that both his aim and hand-eye coordination left something to be desired and it came nowhere close, but that didn't stop him from throwing a third. She blinked hard in near-amazement.

"Oh you little asshole. Wait until I get over there, and g- get my hands around-... fucking…"

Not far into her ridiculously slow trek, she wound up going to a knee to catch her breath, and after a bit of trying to get to him like that just collapsing face-first to the carpet. **Fuck** she was exhausted. She could faintly hear the leaper still whining to himself nearby.

After a minute of trying not to choke to death… and shockingly _not_ finding herself with claws digging into her… she eased herself back up into a sitting position to look around. It was dim, but she appeared to be in some sort of reading room, seemingly undisturbed by the apocalypse that had happened outside. Padded with a couple of couches, comfortable chairs, even a decorative fireplace. The tables were still strewn with a few books, and someone had even forgotten their backpack. It looked like a freeze-frame, almost. A hell of a lot less scary than anything lurking outside, anyways. A couple of narrow windows spaced the walls, probably just big enough for either of them to fit through, one of which was open.

And she had to have gotten here somehow. The only problem was that there was really only one explanation for that. Not to mention that the leaper had apparently been quite literally _on top of her_ for some unspecified amount of time, and here she was, still breathing, sort of.

She needed a drink. There were about half a million questions about how impossible this should be and she got an unfortunate feeling she wasn't easily getting any of them answered. Her head was spinning, and it at least _probably_ wasn't just because she'd inhaled enough smoke to pass out.

Skyler finally felt stable enough to make it to her feet. The Hunter bared his teeth and visibly tensed, looking up warily, but made no further move.

What was even going through his head?

 **-x-**

He had been _entirely_ intending to kill her just before she'd woken up. He'd been crouched over her prone body, heart racing and her throat in his sight, so close he could hear the thrum of blood pulsing through her. It would have been so easy, and he knew he would have done it. She'd saved her own life by waking when she did.

It was lucky that he'd been here for long enough to know small safe spots like this all around the territory. There was no way he'd have made it back to his nest with… her. The monster. It didn't feel quite right calling her "prey" now. The desire to kill her hadn't changed, and he'd just been imagining what her flesh would taste like. He was sure that if he stopped focusing on _not_ doing it that he'd be overwhelmed with it and rush in screaming. But she'd made herself something _different_.

Even now he wasn't sure why he'd brought her here. All he'd really known was that he'd been wracked with adrenaline and panic, and he'd had to get away from everything, from the fire and the noise and the Others to try to sort out the mess in his head. It had been the hardest thing he'd ever done. It had been **so hard** not to stop and feast on her while she was a non-threat. A part of him was proud, simply by not having thought he was capable of that. It felt _wrong_ denying his instinct what it demanded, but at the same time he hadn't known it was an option.

His muscles tensed as the monster walked a slow half-circle, just… watching him. Like she was getting a better look at him. Sort of like an Other trying to size him up, but not necessarily looking for a fight.

Suddenly it occurred to him that he had the chance to do the same. Despite everything, and the fact that she was still terrifying, he was interested. Maybe it'd at least help him understand. Hesitantly, muscles coiled like he was readying for a pounce, he shuffled onto all fours.

 _Do it! Kill it now!_

For a second he was floored by the impulse, actually did snarl and his claws dug the floor underneath him. The monster tensed in turn, gaze hard down at him as she clutched her stabbing-thing. He managed to ease back, internally whispering a steady stream of, _Shh. Not yet, not yet, not yet…_ to himself. Gradually she relaxed as he did, or at least the threat to kill lessened, and the moment passed.

The eye she had left to her was strange and unfilmed, like the other Clean Ones. It was strange how she, the ones like her, didn't look suited for fighting. Their bodies lacked anything like claws, or sharp teeth, or even anything like a grabbing tongue or armored limb to rely on. And yet, just about every time he'd seen them, they managed to bring mass death onto the Others, at least the weak ones and sometimes even strong Others who were unlucky or not smart enough. It seemed for everything the Clean Ones lacked, they were still far better at killing Others than the Others were at killing them.

An unusually soft sound left him as he, always a curious thing, thought about this. He'd always thought that it had been because of their firesticks, but she had already proven that she was threat enough without it. How was that, he wondered? It was nothing he could tell just by looking at her.

As soon as he leaned in any closer in his investigation though (as much as a part of him shrieked that this was still too risky), she pulled back, making uncertain, low mumbling noises. All around, she looked as ready to either recoil or strike at a moment's notice as he was. Tension remained thick in the air; he could feel it on his skin.

Aching as this was, though, he made no first move to attack, and it seemed as long as he held back, so did she. How long could this last before something broke it?

 **-x-**

Skyler's poker face was pretty shit, but hopefully it was enough to pull one past on the leaper and convince him she wasn't moderately freaking out internally as she kept on her toes in what felt almost like a coordinated if incredibly tense little tango.

"Hoooly shit," she mumbled to herself, still sort of trying to determine that she wasn't just having some sort of weird dream. "We're not killing each other right now. That's fucked. I mean. You totally look like you wanna kill me, but you're not, are you? This is some bullshit."

It was probably pretty telling that she could think of about five ways that she might react if this leaper suddenly decided to lunge for her, but not what to do about the fact that he _wasn't_. This was fucking incredible. Or terrifying, one or the other. What was she even going to tell anyone once… she could get hold of…

Her hands felt over her belt, all of her pockets, and blood started draining out of her face as she realized that she was _missing the goddamn radio that she'd nearly torched herself over_. "Ah no. Oh no no no," she mumbled, gaping openly. She vaguely remembered having been holding it when she'd passed out, she must have dropped it sometime between then and now-

She hardly noticed that the kid seemed to be watching her search as dumbfounded as she was, or that he was fishing around in the pockets of his own sweatshirt, until she looked up... and it turned out to be the goddamned radio. He was holding it uncertainly, probably because he didn't know what the hell it was, or so she guessed. She stiffened.

"That's mine," she asserted, staring down her prize. The Hunter, for his part, didn't budge. If anything, he seemed to take assessment of how she was reacting. And then, as she watched, he took a goddamn step _backwards_. "Son of a bitch!" she cursed sharply, which only prompted him to growl. Alright, alright. Deep breaths, calm thoughts.

What was he doing, using this as some kind of- of bartering token or something? As fucking impossible as that sounded, it was the first thing that came to mind. That he _knew_ she needed this and was using it to some kind of advantage. It was staggering that she'd given this kid an inch and it turned out that he might be getting _clever_ on her. She'd known these things had the kind of animal cunning to be able to track a person down further than the most dogged hound, but this wasn't something expected. What he could possibly want, though, was another matter.

"You know, I totally could have stabbed you by now. FYI," she grumbled. The second that she fidgeted with her knife grip though, he bared teeth at her, sidestepping once again. Pretty clear indication that she wasn't getting anywhere near like that without a fight.

Fuck it! Just… fuck it. "Fucking… fine! You want the knife gone?" She threw the blade at the floor hard enough that the point stuck. "There. Look. Gone." She accompanied this with a dramatic gesture in its direction. This seemed to accomplish something, at least. The leaper shifted from staring her down to the discarded weapon but then back again, still edging warily.

"And for good goddamn measure." Her assault rifle, at the moment useless besides as a blunt instrument anyways, clattered to the floor next.

"But wait! There's more!" she announced in her best "Billy Mays", about exasperated and baffled enough to try anything, as she kneeled enough to unstrap her calf holster and discard it along with her smaller backup blade.

Skyler threw out her arms, just to show that she was in fact unarmed. This time there was a hesitance as he quickly looked between her and the small pile, as if wondering whether there was still more to come, but, well. He didn't know she carried a switchblade in her boot, too. She gritted her teeth and held out a hand. 'Give it here'.

It was something else how careful these pauses looked. Like, hell. By anyone's guess, this Hunter was probably considering things more thoroughly than _she_ at least did half the time. Finally, he pulled back the arm holding the radio. She held up her arms in defense,

"I swear to god if you throw this at me-!"

It landed dully around the general area of her pile of weapons and, just as soon as that was done, he retreated back into the relative shelter of one of the tables, and thus concluded what had to be the first successful attempt at bargaining with a goddamn zombie. Skyler blinked.

"I, uh. Well. Good. For you."

With that settled, she quickly retrieved the shortwave, biting her tongue in anticipation as she pressed the power button. Come on. Come on. Her heart jumped when the indicator light turned a beautiful, solid green. She punched in the frequency for Midway.

" _-reminding you that just because you can't see them… doesn't mean they can't see you. Remember, people. If you're hearing me now, that means you're still alive. Keep doing it for your buddy over at Radio Midway. I'm coming at you now with our track of the hour to keep you pumped and hitting 'em where it hurts…"_

 **-x-**

The Hunter's pupils constricted into pinpoints. _Prey sound_. Instantly fresh aggression railed through him at the indication of a _clean_ presence. Where was it? He crept out from his hiding spot, ready to tear into it when he found it. His nose twitched in frustration. No scent aside from his and the monster's. He paced this way and that, searching, but found nothing. Hearing things that weren't there? It would be nothing new. No though, that wasn't right. This seemed to be focused on something.

The… box that he'd given the monster. He'd been concerned that he'd just given her back another weapon, but apparently it was something much stranger. There were _voices_ coming from it. More sounds that he didn't understand. It was aggravating, made his head ache trying to process it. Even if it wasn't "real", he still wanted to wipe it out. He reared up, already starting into a snarl when just as suddenly as the sounds had started they cut off, leaving him wondering if they'd been there in the first place. The monster glared and gave a displeased hissing sound in his direction before storming off towards a small side room. He'd visited here before, knew there was no exit from there, but she closed the entrance and shut herself in there anyways. Shortly after, the voices resumed, at least now muffled enough they could be pushed aside with some effort.

Once she was out of his sight, some of the tension finally eased, and he sagged back towards the floor. He still felt a tremor in his limbs and most movements caused dark spots to swim in his vision, but it was bearable enough to conceal in front of danger. He badly wanted to sleep, but there was far too much going on for that. Now that he found himself "alone", he tangled his claws on the ground and gnashed his teeth restlessly. She was doing something, he knew. Planning something, maybe. What it was, though, he had no idea.

All of his had him… shaken, was the best way he had to describe it. In all of his time that he'd existed, that he remembered, there had been a very certain way that things worked, even if the kind of threats he might face varied. You fought, you killed, you might live for another night. Now, nothing was familiar.

He felt unsteady, not just from being physically weak. Normally when something made him feel like this, he could kill it, or break it, or whatever he had to do to make it go away. Unable to do that, frustration built up. Part of him still wanted to flee, like he'd wanted to do in the burning building. He didn't want to deal with this. He really didn't. He wasn't even really sure what _was_ keeping him here, other than how many _questions_ he still had. As was quickly becoming habit, he stroked the smooth chain in his pocket.

He gave a halfhearted return glare at the entrance the monster had vanished behind and growled, but it lacked much of the aggression he'd meant. All he could really do was wait and see what happened.

 **-x-**

There was a long while that Skyler just sat there in the "nook", really practically a closet with one more table and a couple of chairs stuffed snugly into it, just listening to "Umbrella" at a low volume and wondering where she was even going to begin with this. Maybe it was best to start simply. She took a breath. Held down the transmit. And after days of no other truly human contact, the first thing that came out of her mouth was,

"Uh… hi."

Upon taking a second to realize how uninformative and lame that sounded, she cleared her throat and continued, "This is Private Theodora Skyler reporting. I am, uh. Alive. Mostly. You hearing me, Midway?"

There was a moment of pause before Rihanna went silent and a beat later, a reply came through of,

" _Hoooly shit, you're not dead. Division 5? Took off for Boston like four days ago? And you're, uh."_ The man on the opposite end took a second to think before finishing, " _You're it?"_

Her expression couldn't have been flatter. "Yeah. I'm it." With no one around to see it, she gave the best "jazz hands" she could while holding the radio. "Surprise _._ "

" _That's, uh. Not good,"_ their radio man stated eloquently, to which she responded with an equally eloquent,

"No. They fucked up my face. It sucks and I want to leave."

Another low, " _Shit,"_ came through. " _So, don't hate your buddy here if this is a dumb question. What's your status like? Where are you at?"_

Skyler's fist clenched, more out of frustration at the whole situation that strictly at the man. "Well, pal. You know what, what am I calling you?"

" _This is Four Dog. You know, like in… Uh. N-never mind. Just. Four Dog is cool."_

Nerd. "Right, well. Four Dog. I, uh, am injured. And, oh yeah, I'm missing my fucking **eye**. That is a thing that has happened. I'm… shit, somewhere around University of New Haven campus I think?"

" _And you're alone?"_

She tensed. Gritted her teeth for a second. Probably took just a moment too long to respond before a strained, "Yyyeah."

" _That was a strange-sounding sort of "yeah", Miss Skyler."_

Ah shit, this was a tough part. Now how to handle this? "Well, I… found a kid," she mumbled awkwardly. Four Dog fell silent for a bit.

" _Out… there? You found a kid out there?"_

Okay, so. 'Ways to explain what was going on without sounding entirely ridiculous'. After a stretch of coming up blank, she wound up sort of nodding to no one in particular. "Uh-huh."

" _Out there. For real? Like, no fucking with me. It's gotta have been three months since we pulled anyone out of that point! Been radio silent since then. Why didn't you tell me sooner?"_

This may have been a hole that she'd started to dig herself into. She stared in the direction of the door, as if the leaper in the next room was somehow going to help her out here. Her foot started to fidget. "I, uh. 'M not sure he's going to make it," she mumbled.

" _What? Is he hurt or something?"_

"Oh for sure. Pretty sure he got stabbed or something."

Four Dog sighed, staticky through the filter of the radio. " _Okay, okay. So. We're still evacuating out of Boston."_

Skyler stood back up fast enough to knock over the chair.

"Ah come on! It'll take me a week to get there on foot! Give me a break here! I just told you I've totally got a hurt kid over here! Have some mercy, man. He's got a fucking smiley face on his ID." She was sure Adrian Lamb was well beyond caring about her using him this way.

" _Listen, I'm sorry! There's no way I'm convincing anyone to stage an evac there. Place has been overrun for months. It'd be a suicide run. Like. Not even in the action movie, mission impossible way. Like, the "everyone you went with is already dead" way."_ His tone became more sympathetic after a moment. " _...You think you can make it?"_

Skyler's mouth felt dry. It hit her again just how very _sore_ she was all over again. It almost felt like someone else as she responded, "Yeah. Totally. I'm a badass."

" _I'm pulling for you. You need help from Four Dog, you know what frequency to find me. Peace be with you, sister."_

She shut off the radio. No use wasting the battery any more. Let out a heavy groan and sat heavily on the floor beside the upended chair. This was fine. This was totally… goddamn fine. So she had to hike across the entire state to get home. So what?

After all, even after all the shit so far, she was still alive. There was going to be no problem.

* * *

A/N: So this update wasn't as quick as the last one but then again I am working full-time now so you know. Enjoy a new character and if you're nice and eat your vegetables you might just get another one. As always I often miss stuff before I post so if anything is weird/just could be better please let me know!


	8. Cutie Killer

**-x-**

" _So if you're lonely/ You know I'm here waiting for you/ I'm just a crosshair/ I'm just a shot away from you/ And if you leave here/ You leave me broken, shattered a-"_

"HOLY ABSOLUTE FUCK! WHAT IS _WRONG_ WITH YOU?! NO NO NO NO NO-"

A muffled crack split the night. Less than a heartbeat later, the common infected's eye was obliterated and the round exited its head in a spray of brain and bone fragments. It sagged bonelessly barely a foot away from the screaming man tied to the post, within the thirty-foot perimeter of a chalk circle etched onto the pavement, joining the rest of the felled infected within the kill range. The man wheezed, still trying to scrabble back on his shattered kneecap. It was only once he seemed to realize that he was not being ripped up that he cursed. He looked every part the grizzled survivor, clad head to toe in heavy gear aside from the fact that he'd been stripped of all of his weapons, and sporting a gnarly five o'clock shadow. Now though, he was visibly drenched in sweat, even his hair saturated with it.

Far up above in her vantage point, nested inconspicuously at the window of a tiny apartment, the sniper eased off of the scope and removed her headphones. The young girl brushed a bit of blonde hair out of her face, rolling her eyes, and leaned herself slightly out the window.

"Ah come on now," she called down. "I haven't let you get killed yet, have I? You don't have to wet yourself over it."

Honestly. This guy was a real baby for someone fancying himself some kind of bandit, wasn't he? Going around trying to rough up girls for their supplies, making himself look all tough. The aesthetic didn't land him any credit if he couldn't back it up. She highly doubted he even had any prior shooting experience, at least from what she'd seen. What was it with these sorts and thinking they were cut out for the long run?

Well, at least he was loud, which was exactly what she needed. Incapacitated, loud, and smelling like a full-course meal. These things sure seemed to like a screamer, but she couldn't blame them. It did seem to make things more fun. Ha. Innuendo.

Cat really never could have guessed that being sent off for schooling would have worked out like this. She hadn't been all that interested herself but mum, ever doting and concerned, had been insistent on ensuring that her daughter's higher education was pursued, in memory of dear old dad. It had been about five months since the start of term and already what as far as she could tell was an _apocalypse_ had gone down. Pretty classic in terms of movie apocalypses, too. Cities burning, cannibal mutants devouring people in the streets, the whole nine yards. She'd seen all of it happen, been more or less in the center of it. Her new classmates that weren't disfigured into whatever the hell these things died in droves even as she herself had turned out to be immune to the disease. The term "orgy of violence" came to mind, and seemed to fit the bill pretty well.

A slow, nostalgic smile started to curl her lips. Maybe she'd made the right choice showing up here, after all. She'd never been more ready in her life.

Really though, this here was just a waiting game. As much as she might complain, watching what's-his-face lose his shit every time a "normie" infected got close was pretty funny, but this was small time. It was only a matter of time until something _else_ came along.

She rested her arms on the windowsill, observing her turf below. By now her captive was sagged over onto his side, likely none too happy about having sat there with a crippling injury for a while. As of now, everything around was still, although she knew there were likely eyes on the action besides her own.

"Hey you. Down there. You still with me?" she chirped questioningly.

A few moments passed before the man shifted and she managed to make out a low, "Fuck," though whether or not it was directed at her she wasn't sure. Good enough for her, though.

"Cool, cool. Hey, you know what I call this? A honeypot. I mean, kind of neat, right? Like. You know they've got to see all their dead buddies in the range, but they just keep coming, don't they? Wonder if they're that hungry, or if they're just so ready to kill you they don't care. I just thought that was neat." She pulled out a pack of gum from her vest pocket and popped a couple of sticks into her mouth.

Faintly she heard ragged panting. Slowly he shifted to stare up at her. At this point, though, he hardly even looked angry. More defeated, really.

"Oh you bitch," he half-gasped up at her, voice obviously pained, almost pleading. "I was only ever gonna… gonna take your gear."

Cat tilted her head, bird-like.

"Huh. You know? That's kind of funny. Because I was planning on killing _you_ this whole time."

Oh! Wait! Movement somewhere at the edge of her vision, something stealthy and hardly noticeable. Ah, now that looked promising. Excitedly she pressed her teeth into her lip in a half-grin, crouching down as low out of sight as possible and raising her rifle sight back up out the window.

"What have we got here," she breathed to herself, fingers gleefully stroking over her rifle stock right around the little ":3" that she had etched on.

And… there. Creeping closer, between and around the abandoned cars that lined the street, just about as far out as she could make out, probably thinking that he was being stealthy. From the pose and movements, it had to be one of the jumping ones, albeit a pretty small example of one. Likely just on that edge of being old enough to stand a fair chance at surviving the change.

Cat's heart raced. Her grin grew. She'd been waiting _all day_ for this, and now it was finally paying off. It was a little harder to lure out the special ones, which she was pretty sure owed something to them having at least a primitive understanding of what a trap might be. This had to be worth a fair amount of points on the imaginary scoreboard she was keeping.

"Pow," she whispered with a faint pop of her lips, focusing in on the hooded face as the bitty leaper stood up, going still in order to sniff in the direction of food. Her finger flexed.

It was quite literally a _split_ second before she squeezed the trigger that, faster than reaction speed, her target was snagged and dragged out of the way. Once the shot went wide she saw a second, larger Hunter, who'd apparently been more careful to remain out of view, still gripping the back of the younger's sweatshirt. She- at least Cat thought it was a she- immediately jerked her head in the direction that the bullet had come from, bared teeth into a hiss, and gave a sharp pull on the first before darting away into cover, quickly tailed by the other.

Ah, hell. Well that meant that her entire setup at this point was useless. She was unlikely to manage more than picking off normies if they'd caught onto her, and that was shooting fish in a barrel. She groaned, shaking her head in disappointment.

"Did you _see_ how close that was?" she bemoaned to what's-his-face, who unappreciatively said nothing before sighing and giving her rifle stock a little kiss. "'S not your fault, Baby Girl. I'm not mad at you." After replacing her weapon in her back holster, she poked out once more to call down. "Just wait right there. I'm headed down."

She was a little put-out as she headed out of the apartment and towards the stairs, already cleared out when she'd taken up post. It just had to be one of the ones that ran with others, didn't it? She supposed she didn't have much to be sour about, though. She had just been thinking about wanting something more daring to do. Long games could be especially rewarding in the end. Yeah. That was a little better, now.

With that in mind, there was a slight bounce in her step again as she exited the complex, striding out towards her honeypot. She had to muffle a chuckle when she saw that, in the few short minutes it had taken her to get down there, the bandit had already done his best to limp off out of her boundary and untie himself from his post.

"Now that was a stupid idea, wasn't it? I mean, come on now, man. It took me like two minutes to get down here and I've shot out your leg. What'd you think was going to happen, for real?"

"Oh jesus fuck," he choked out, looking back over his shoulder, apparently only alerted to her presence then and going entirely still, like he was staring down a predator animal. Cat shrugged her shoulders. "OKAY, OKAY! FUCK! I'M SORRY I TRIED TO ROB YOU! I'm sorry-" This time she really _could_ see something wet spreading down the leg of his pants. Heh. Gross.

She held up a hand, shaking her head and locking eyes. "Listen, dude. I'm not buying it. You tried to get the jump on a schoolgirl, after all. That's just _wrong_. Have you thought about how you might deserve what's happened?" A long pause passed while what's-his-face gaped at her. Eventually though her straight face crumbled and she couldn't help letting out a snort.

"Pffh. Kidding! I'm kidding! Oh, man. I wish you could see how you looked right now. Nah, I just like killing people."

Cat drew her bowie knife and spat out her gum with a grin. She began closing in and the screaming started up anew.


	9. Shatter

**-x-**

When the monster slipped from the room, it was with a scowl on her face. She had to have heard or seen something while shut in that had enraged her. The voices had continued the entire time, and when she finally emerged she looked to be in an awful mood all over again. She ignored him entirely at first, shuffling through the room before abruptly stopping and kicking a heavy object in her way. Immediately she hissed in pain and gave the obstacle a glare like it personally had done this, probably realizing that this hadn't been a good idea in the first place, but he could understand that. It was an expression of frustration, and he knew those well. He rumbled in a sort of assent where he laid, although he was also quick to prepare himself to be ready to move if needed if she suddenly turned the outburst on him.

It was only then that she really seemed to remember he was there, and she turned as though surprised. For just a second he thought that she was going to come at him too, but she just wound up letting out a low mumbling sound and sagging onto the thing she had kicked. As much as his instinct insisted otherwise, it was… starting to seem that she really had decided not to further harm him after all. Which should have been impossible. The ones like her, they only wanted to hurt the ones like _him_ , even if they didn't seem to quite become crazed with it in the same way his own kind did. But then she'd also stopped him from dying, so…?

No. No no no he didn't want to think about this right now. His head actually throbbed from focusing on this for too long. He did his best to quiet the thoughts, shaking his head as if he could physically get rid of them. It didn't do much to help.

He'd blocked out his surroundings for that moment, practically a blackout, and by the time he came back to awareness, the monster was staring in his direction. A snatch of a growl escaped him and he slunk back into a sheltered space by the corner, shaking himself out with the hair on his neck standing on end. He _hated_ that staring. Maybe this would be better if she didn't still have one of her eyes.

As much as he wanted to avoid it, questions that he had no way of expressing kept boiling up. What was he going to do now that he had her here? What was it that had stopped him from killing her, and how could he get rid of it? And behind them all was simply a great, roaring _why_? From experience, being caught up in things like this was never good. They only ever led to anger, frustration, even more confusion that he was normally left wrapped in. Pain.

This… this was the monster's fault, he rationalized. He wouldn't be having to have any of these thoughts if it wasn't for her.

Maybe… maybe the only way to fix this was to kill her, after all. Something deep inside him almost crooned that _yes_. Yes, that made sense, when almost nothing else did. Out of view, he heard the monster shift.

 **-x-**

Okay, so, there was still one giant, unresolved question. What the _hell_ was she going to do about this Hunter situation? She'd totally botched even trying to explain this, but it seemed like _a pretty fucking big deal_ that this _infected_ had apparently saved her goddamn life. She was still trying to sort out this information and what it meant, but at the same time, she wasn't sure she really wanted to pick it apart, either. Something about it left the feeling of a heavy stone in her gut.

Had it honestly been her treating him that had prompted it? Was he actually capable of recognizing that? There was definitely no question that he'd been trying to kill her before, and even now he seemed fairly aggressive. She didn't know whether it made it better or worse that she was almost entirely sure that he wasn't making the move to come at her even though he _really wanted to_. This had to be some freak case. Something that would never happen again in a million years, right?

She groaned and stared towards the window for a while, noting that the grey outside had finally broken into a snow squall. A few errant flakes drifted in through the opening, and a chill wind came with it. It was a little freaky that the Hunter ran so feverish she could see his breath already. The weather made an atmospheric drop to her sitting there moping in thought, anyways.

Eventually she shuffled herself off of her cozy chair. "You're killing me, kid," she mumbled, no pun intended.

At the moment, he seemed to be doing his very best not to actually look at her. She sat herself on the floor, idly eyeing what she was could vaguely make out as a singular emblazoned sparrow on the back of his dirty sweatshirt. His back muscles twitched under her gaze, like he could feel her eye on him. Maybe he could, the Hunters especially did seem to have one hell of a Spidey-sense.

"And what am I supposed to be calling you, anyways?" she mused, drumming the fingers on her injured hand on her knee to test them. Still sore, predictably, but usable. Just "the Hunter" or some variation was starting to sound weird. She had to differentiate him somehow, right? Even if it was weird acknowledging that he actually had a name. At least, the human that he'd been did. "Lambchop? Leg-o-Lamb? Mary had a little Lamb?"

He tensed and a growl rolled through him in response to her voice. She could just imagine an "ooh Skyler, you're _so_ funny. Please, go on." She rolled her eyes.

"Fine, fine. How about just Adrian?"

Unexpectedly, the leaper jerked violently. He whipped around to face her, teeth bared and body language as stunned as if she'd physically struck him, which in itself gave her a damn heart attack. Holy _shit_. That was… that was honest-to-god _responding to his name._ This infected knew his goddamn name.

Her mouth went dry and for a second she couldn't say anything else. She had to swallow a lump before she continued, "Y-yeah. You know that?"

He edged closer, out from under his table.

"...Adrian? That's your name, isn't it-"

A snarl ripped through the Hunter and, faster than she had at all expected, he lunged for her.

 **-x-**

Confusion. Fury. Bursting across his brain. Making him see white with it as he crashed into the monster. He- he _recognized_ that sound. That was… it was **him**.

 _Name._ _Me._

The realization was as jarring as missing a jump and flooded him near-senseless.

But **how**?! How was she making noises that he understood, how did she know something so deep and private about himself that _he_ hadn't known it until he'd heard it? Chaos railed and paranoid, wild thoughts raced.

The blood would fix this. It always did; it had to. He'd lose himself in the glorious give of her flesh, any other thought would be drowned out in that perfect roar of adrenaline and blinding pleasure. Good. That was good. He had to end this. His claws curled to dig into her. His heart beat a manic pace. His eyes stung.

Something sliced through the frenzy. Something grasping- touching-... Panic, raw and consuming, struck. _She was holding onto his wrist_. Terror that he couldn't comprehend overrode him, forced him off and away even as he _needed_ to tear into her.

His head was _screaming_. Exploding with throbbing pain, foreign thoughts and images trying to force themselves in. Like the hallucinations, but more violent. It was like he could _feel_ something cracking. No. No no no **nonono** he couldn't do this, he couldn't do any of this!

Escape became the strongest drive and he scrambled for the tiny entrance he's dropped in through, slipping on something cold and wet, but a mixture of the panic and lingering weakness made him miss his jump up to it. He scrabbled down the wall, chest heaving, and instead blindly raged against one of the heavier objects, sending it toppling with a crash. More stinging in his eyes. He tore at anything nearby, shrieked, finally collapsed into a panting, exhausted heap below the opening. Wrapped his arms around himself, trying with every ounce of him to hold himself together. Never before had he felt more aware of how thinner-than-string whatever was keeping him going was, or just how frayed.

Even without looking, he sensed the monster standing nearby. He screamed again. Hate. He _hated_ her. Everything was her fault, she'd done all of this. He was so deeply wrapped up in this world of misery that he hardly noticed her slowly turning and walking out. The entrance closing behind her had an air of finality.

Alone.

After the past few days, it shouldn't have been possible for any more tears to be left in him, and yet it came out of his control. Frantically he held onto his chain, like it was the only thing tethering him to what remained of his sanity in something vast and dark. He could feel the cold from outside dusting over and around him.

And as he laid there, a few things did start to fall into place. Crushing realizations, things that he'd known all along but had never wanted to think about because they threatened to tear him apart.

How the truth was that everything he did, all of the struggle and the ache and fighting tooth and claw and sweat and blood against the Clean Ones and his brothers and starvation _every. Single. Day_ was for nothing more than a desperate, primal urge to push his death back a little further each time. The only things to numb it were the hunt and the killing. It was never going to stop but no matter what he did, he was still going to- going to die forgotten out here anyways. Like none of it had ever mattered.

And he hated… hated this monster, this woman prey who had come here and forced him to imagine anything else. With her… with her smelling like _Before_ , and his name, and- and _helping_ him. For making him stop for long enough to realize how utterly exhausted he was. He was so, so tired. His body was and his mind was. He didn't know how he was possibly going to get up and do any of this again. He had no sense of time to know how long this had gone on already. To him, it might as well have been forever.

In that moment, curled up on the floor of a place that should have been safe for him, he clutched the chain to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut against the frigid wind.

And he hoped against hope to die where he laid.

He willed it so hard that he didn't look up when he thought he heard the entrance opening. It was only the sound of a voice that drew some of his attention. Even still he hardly twitched, letting out a low rumble of his own. Monster. What was she still doing here?

Feet shuffled across the floor. The monster's voice came again.

" _Adrian."_

 **-x-**

"Adrian," Skyler called out again. If anything he seemed to shrink further away at the sound.

Damn it though, she… she might have been a pretty awful person in general, but she'd like to think of herself as not a _complete_ monster. Not that she really knew _what_ the hell she was supposed to do. A firm "there there" seemed pretty weak for whatever the hell this kid was going through. Unfortunately all she could really tell from the outside though was that it seemed, uh… pretty fucking awful.

Still though, she hesitated in place. Somehow it seemed like it would _mean_ something if she made another move here. Maybe something serious that she couldn't take back. She twisted the throw that she'd collected from the other room in her hands and shivered faintly.

This… this wasn't her. It didn't come naturally to her and she could admit that. But fuck, she felt like she at least should do _something_. At least try, even if it was just some gesture. She meant, sure, he'd more or less tried to kill her again, but this had to be some shit for him to go through.

Her hands clenched. Fuck everything. Even someone like her could recognize genuine suffering, and maybe… shit, maybe it didn't matter what it was coming from. It gave her the momentum she needed.

She didn't let whatever sentimentality had come over her totally cloud her judgement, though, and she was still cautious and slow as she crouched. Instinctively, just knowing what he _was_ , the back of her brain still screamed at her not to get so close, but she swallowed it back for now.

The kid shuddered when the blanket draped over his shoulders. Some unidentifiable, low sound left him, and he shifted to look up towards her at such an angle that she could actually catch a glimpse at his glazed eyes. He hardly looked angry, which was almost alarming, considering the only time she'd seen that had been when she'd looked at him while he was unconscious. More than anything though, he looked very tired and confused.

"Shit. You're, ah," she mumbled, horribly awkward but trying to keep what her sister might do in this situation in mind. "You're okay. Fuck. No, you're not. You're totally not. That was dumb." It probably didn't make much of a difference what she actually did say; nothing really seemed to catch aside from when she used his name, anyways. She let out a single, tense laugh. "God I'm bad at this. I feel bad for you when the only one there is _me_. But… well… I'm what there is. I'm what you've got. And I'm… sorry I can't do more. You- whoever you were- deserved better than this. 'S not like you asked for it."

Cold fucking comfort. It was probably best that he didn't understand her. She grumbled, shuffling back to her feet. "I… I'm gonna go now."

Something caught the leg of Skyler's pants as she stood. Her heart thudded unevenly without even looking down and she froze. Briefly her knees went weak, and blood drained from her cheeks.

"No."

The grip didn't release. She turned slowly, and the kid… Adrian was sitting up with the throw hanging off of his shoulders.

"No. _No._ You stop that right the fuck now. There is nothing I can goddamn do."

Her attempt to pull her leg away was met by him instead standing up, nearly at his full height aside from a slight stoop, hardly a foot from being face to face with her. The memory of him streaking his own goddamn blood over her face flashed back at her and she nearly jerked back, but opted for standing her ground, even as he panted and let out a low snarl. He rocked on the balls of his heels. Flexed his clawed fingers. Even started to make a false start at her, but held back at the last second. Skyler watched all of this, unsure of whether she was just tempting fate, but she seemed rooted to the spot.

"Make up your mind, Adrian. Are we gonna do this again, or no?"

Her words meant little, she knew. His lithe body tensed and rolled. She was going to fight back if there was an attack, of course, but the seconds ticked on. He seemed oblivious to the few snowflakes drifting over him. Finally though a shudder went through him along with a low, rumbling sound and he grounded himself with more conviction. Stubborn. He really was. Just like her.

Slowly, a somewhat stunned smirk grew over her face. This was just un-fucking-believable. With that, a low chuckle left her, and she saw him twitch again, possibly in alarm. Briefly she reached out her bandaged hand, patting over Adrian's fevered shoulder.

"You don't know the kind of mistake you're making, kid," she warned. Not that it would do any kind of good. This was past the point of turning back. "But, hell with it. If that's how you want it, I'm willing to play this."

She had no idea what she was getting herself into by not walking away either, but then again she never did with most situations, anyways. Why should this be any different? It was as simple as two outcomes: Either she'd find out what happened, or she'd die. And she was more than certain it'd be interesting to see which one.

* * *

A/N: Fun facts about this chapter, I wanted to end it with Skyler definitively closing the window the snow was coming in through but then I realized she's too short to reach it and would have to push over a chair and that would just ruin the mood, and so here, I'll just do that in the A/N


	10. Little Boots

**-x-**

Hours had passed since Skyler shut the window on what was quickly becoming a godforsaken winter wonderland outside, which had warmed the bookstore up considerably, and she'd made the executive decision that she was not going back out there until the squall had let up. On top of not wanting to freeze her ass off, her visibility was shitty enough now as it was. She wondered whether the infected would even be out in this weather to get the jump on her. Heavy rain seemed to drive them to sheltered spaces, after all, and this may be the same, but she wasn't taking that chance. She found herself wondering why anyone, including herself, ever decided to settle in the Northeast; This time of year there was nothing but a frozen hellscape populated only by Dunkin Donuts and college kids pairing shorts with winter wear. And now you couldn't even get hot Dunkin coffee, either.

It was probably just as well, anyways. She knew her exhausted body could sure as hell use a rest, and she was willing to bet the Hunter could say the same. Considering how far he'd gone and _especially_ considering he'd dragged her dead-ass weight back here, it was entirely likely he'd also torn some of the stitches she'd put in. Was she willing to check that out, though, while he was very much conscious and had the ability to retaliate? Hell if she knew.

"Alright, Adrian," she mumbled, sitting down at the table and scribbling away at a notebook she'd scavenged from the abandoned backpack as she mentally devised. "If you want a rundown. I've got, ah… no ammunition, which is fantastic. No idea where anything is around here and apparently no help coming to me until I can get to goddamn Massachusetts. But hey. Maybe you can gather up some more of these books and fucking throw them really hard at anything that comes running."

He did look up to regard her at the mention of his name, but once again it seemed that her incredible wit had gone to waste. Was there even a point in being a smartass when the only other one around didn't seem to understand speech? Tragic.

Inaction always did kill her, though. She finally set down her notes, which amounted to a haphazard scrawl of, '- Find bullets - Get to Boston - Don't get eaten - Hunter?' and began pacing the interior, occasionally skimming her fingers along the spine of a book idly. She got the feeling her "companion" was as restless as she was, but mostly just watched her or occasionally grumbled or twitched to look at nothing in particular. It was unnerving, in the way that it was when a cat would stare into corners with nothing in sight.

Eventually she decided that the best thing she could do while stuck in here was to prepare herself for the ordeal that was sure to come when she left. How long had it been since she'd sat down long enough to eat something? At least since before she'd taken off from the flat, so a day, possibly longer. She'd been smart enough to stuff the rest of the cans from the pantry into her pack before she'd left, so that was something.

Though as she sat herself back at the table, fully ready to tear into a can of weenies, it did make her wonder. Huh. She never really did imagine the infected as munching on anything besides people, but come to think of it, if they didn't then there definitely wouldn't be that many left to bother her. They'd have starved to death ages ago, and while some of them certainly looked on that edge, they had to be finding something. She was pretty sure she'd seen them going after _each other_ on occasion, but did they eat, like, normal stuff?

"Hey kid," she goaded, unzipping her bag and taking out a can. "You eat weenies? That came out worse than I meant. Like, people food?"

Adrian gave her a perplexed side-eye, but if he gave a crap about the can, he didn't show it. Did he even know what this was? As a test she popped the lid, holding it out in his general direction. "I mean. Can't say they look the best, but-"

She was cut off before she even finished by a guttural growl. He'd already slunk as close as he presumably dared, and she was pretty sure she could actually see him salivating… or, scratch that, she definitely could, right down his chin. Well wasn't that pleasant? A rumble was going through him so low and deep he seemed to actually quiver with it. That answered one question.

"Jeez, kid, chill out. Gonna starve to death in the next five seconds? Just take it." She slid the can to the edge of the table and took a step or two back. There was a beat of pause, but it didn't take long before it was snatched off and the Hunter curled himself around it defensively, as if expecting it to be taken away at any second and began eating with all of the messy enthusiasm of a starved animal. Maybe "starving to death in the next five seconds" wasn't that much of an exaggeration after all. Vaguely she remembered something Lauren had said about burning calories making heat and wondered if that was part of why he ran so fucking hot. She wasn't a doctor, but that sounded about right. Some freak metabolism for running around leaping from buildings that was gradually burning him up. Starve a cold. Feed a fever.

"Mmh. Still can't believe this, though," she mumbled contemplatively as she sucked down a couple of her own weenies. "Scratched out my fucking eye and now I'm _feeding_ you. Am I ever gonna get rid of you now?"

Adrian didn't so much as look up. Skyler sighed and, for the moment, decided that her time would be better spent doing something like figuring out if that fake fireplace could be used to hold a real fire without burning this place down too.

 **-x-**

It was common knowledge that there were a few things that were more precious and valuable than anything else in the world. Shelter was important. Without it, there was nothing to keep one safe from either Others or exposure to the elements. Water too, especially when it had been a long stretch since the skies had poured down. Above everything else, though, was the need for _food_. It consumed his thoughts… and those of the ones like him, he knew… a large portion of the time, constantly looming and desperate. In recent memory there was less and less of it and it was something guarded and hoarded, only given between the closest of packmates or when something was wanted.

This monster had to want something in return, but he'd been too hungry to resist. He was going to have to worry about that when it came. The squishy substance- he _thought_ it was some sort of flesh but everything about it was so different he couldn't even be sure- was gone too soon, and hardly satisfied, but it was better than nothing.

At the moment, the monster didn't take further action, seeming content to leisurely eat her own meal. So then, what did she expect in return? It occurred to him that maybe this was to solidify them as allies, which in truth made him a little nervous. He'd been unthinking when he'd accepted it, but how far could he really trust something so _dangerous_?

But, something else whispered, hadn't she already done enough to show that her intentions might not be entirely horrible after all? He did even have an understanding of why she'd attacked him in the first place, if only a vague one. It was blood for blood, and _did_ make sense. And earlier, while he'd been laying there… It had felt like one of the absolute lowest points that he could remember. Absolutely everything had felt like it was collapsing in around him, and the monster, she… she'd come back and offered _comfort_. There had been no reason for her to do that.

There was still so much to answer, and it was still difficult to even attempt to think about, but somehow after his breakdown before, he felt less likely to fall apart. Maybe it had done some good, after all-

 _Crunch._

Adrian stiffened. Lifted his head in attention, nose raised to catch any nearby scents. The sound hadn't come from inside. His senses were heightened enough that he could already tell that it was too careful, too measured to be one of the Weak Others. His pupils constricted, and a low hiss left him, though he was careful to keep it quiet enough to not draw attention. It was so cold it made it hard to pick up a scent. Another Clean One? One of the smart Others? The noise was still distant, but…

No, he realized, after listening carefully. Not just one.

Not good. This was very _not good_. He was not in any shape for conflict, especially if it wasn't one on one. After a moment, he also had the thought that if it was Others, especially if they were what he thought they were, and they were to get close enough, they would be more than sure to notice the monster as well. No matter how the cold bit at one's nose or the wind whisked away scent, her smell as _prey_ was the sharpest thing around. He'd be lucky if she hadn't left a trail right to where they were anyways. She was going to draw the group right to them.

A short growl escaped him before he could help it. An insistent part of him said that he had laid claim first and so therefore she should be his to do with as he pleased. And for another thing, if they scented her, then they were sure to attack him as well, simply for being in the way. He had to do something about this.

The monster seemed _entirely_ oblivious to the threat, and in fact was making more noises at him, which made him want to yell in frustration. Unable to do that, he bared his teeth with another near-silent hiss, looking from her to back towards one of the openings to make sure that they hadn't heard. This seemed to confuse her, but at least made her fall silent for the moment and look at where he was focused.

There was no time for this. He had to hide the smell somehow. His eyes darted around the room, heart giving a slightly nauseating thud as he tuned out several shadowy figures just within his vision in his search. The still-open entrance to the other room caught his attention.

The monster resumed her meaningless sounds, but they were cut off quickly into a single muffled yell when, without any further warning, he shoved hard into her, knocking her in that direction. She fell to her knees and before she had the chance to recover, he resumed pushing at her. She shoved back and slapped at him, which he imagined was some kind of protest, to which he gave another low hiss. It was only then that she seemed to realize something was going on, because she paused for long enough to look around warily for a threat. He used this break to roughly push her the rest of the way in and then leaned heavily into the other side of the door, forcing it shut mostly by accident but accomplishing what he wanted anyways.

Done. By now he was panting heavily and his stomach wound burned, but at least this meant that he must be gaining some of his strength back. Much slower than he'd have liked, but it was something.

It was… the best that he could do.

 **-x-**

Skyler had no clue what was going on, and it fucking sucked. She guessed enough by the Hunter's bizarre behavior that there was some sort of threat, _though it'd be really nice if he could goddamn tell her what it was_. Irritably she rapped a palm against the door as hard as she dared, hissing out a low, "The fuck is up, kid? You planning on letting me out?"

She was met by a low growl from the other side, and even that sounded hushed. Hell. Just what could it be that had gotten him so riled up? Other specials, maybe? If it were a Tank or some shit, she'd know about it by now.

Or, the thought idly occurred to her, he could have shoved her into here just for the hell of it. Was he capable of that, she wondered? Doing things just to fuck with her? She recalled reading about how that was supposed to be a sign of intelligence in animals, like crows and dolphins.

The utter silence that stretched out even though she knew he was on the other side of the door told of something else, though. A thick tension stood heady in the air, until even her own heart rate escalated with it. She could barely hear his breathing. Her ears _might_ have caught some shuffling outside, but it just as easily could have been snow falling off of the roof or something of the sort.

And then, through the single window in the nook, a shadow was thrown across the floor.

 _Nope!_

Skyler dropped down flush with the carpet, making herself as still and hard to notice as possible. She kept sight of that shadow, watching as it took its sweet time to move on by in a lithe, four-legged gait. Well didn't that figure that Adrian had freaked out? It was another fucking Hunter. Something about the outline of this one seemed… a little off somehow, though. Before she could really take in much more though, something seemed to catch its attention, and it let out an audible little chuff before quickly hopping off past the window, much to her relief.

Perhaps it was against her better judgement, but a minute after the danger had apparently passed, she drew in a deep breath and carefully crept towards the window, trying to get a decent look out to be sure that the coast was actually clear. Considering they were in essentially a basement, the window was level enough to see footprints had come close enough to be more or less directly outside. Close fucking call. She'd lucked out to avoid being spotted, or… scented, or however it was these things usually picked up on their meals.

She squinted as she eyed up the prints while they were still visible, filling up in the muddy snow. After a moment, her heart gave an uneven thud at the realization that she could faintly make out the zigzag pattern and comic logo left by the soles of a pair of _Sketchers for Kids_. Jesus. This wasn't any toddler shoe, and she knew it wasn't _entirely_ impossible for young ones to survive the turn, but still. It was enough to knot up your gut for sure.

It seemed like forever passed before she heard what she supposed was a sigh of relief from Adrian in the other room. Figuring that was about as much an indicator as she was going to get that she was safe to come out, she was still more than a little cautious as she emerged from her impromptu hiding spot. He didn't stop her, at least, which was a good sign.

"Gave me a damn heart attack there, kid. Is that really what you were all worked up over? A tiny leaper? I mean, shit. Still pretty sure you could take him in a fight… Oh, I feel like a bad person."

He still seemed entirely on-edge though, sparing her only a second's glance before resuming making rounds of the perimeter. Mostly he seemed focused on any potential entry points, pausing below each window and even the fake fireplace. Really, it looked unerringly close to a check she'd have done in her early days on the run to make sure any points the infected could come crashing in through were accounted for. It was starting to get unnerving just how _smart_ he seemed at times, and not even in a necessarily "human" way so much as… well. Probably exactly what was to be expected of someone who'd been eking out an existence in an apocalyptic hellhole for months on end.

Now that she'd had some time to settle from the scare, she had a minute to get cozy by the "fire" and consider what she'd just seen, kicking an emptied can o' weenies along the way. Man. A part of her really couldn't help but wonder how a young infected had made it this long, and just how they were going to fare especially in the cold months to come. It was just a formulaic recipe to make absolutely any shit scenario more depressing to add kids into it. And just what had spooked "her" Hunter so badly about it, anyways?

She was just about to take out her radio to at least complain to Four Dog about this when Adrian's continued checking of the side-facing windows led her to look more carefully in that direction.

"What is it that's got you so worried there, anyways? You staring at demons or something? We got a draft coming in? What's over-"

She didn't have to finish her own sentence. Her remaining eye widened and her gut abruptly plunged. Just to make sure of what she was seeing, she stood up on her chair to get a better view.

Holy. Shit.

The snow outside was goddamn _covered_ in footprints. And not from the same pair of feet. The smaller pair of Sketchers were among them, but most of the others were considerably more adult-looking, and with a cold jolt she realized she'd just had her question about how the kid had lasted so long answered.

They'd been passed over by… by an entire fucking _pack_ of these things.


	11. Alpha

**-x-**

Sleep had not come easily after finding out that this city was apparently _swarming with goddamn Hunters_. With the sight of those footprints, every sound brought up suspicion. Gusts of wind turned into potential shrieks of alert, and every creeping shadow had the potential to be armed with teeth and claws. Talk about paranoia fuel. Go figure that Skyler should consider herself lucky the one that jumped her wasn't running with a little leaper gang.

But rest was a necessity, especially if she (they?) was about to set off on a serious trek. Adrian had drifted off before Skyler managed to, though he'd seemed reluctant to do so, and had tucked himself into the least visible corner he could find. The feeling was mutual. She sure wasn't too keen on trying to get some shut-eye where he could see her. She'd had to settle for nesting herself up in the little "nook", and even then she could just imagine waking up to goddamn teeth in her face again.

She woke with daybreak rudely creeping in and grumbled and groaned about it, but that was about as good a time to get a move on as any. At the very least, it evened the playing field a little, since the infected seemed quite a bit more inclined towards night vision than the average person. After some good, bone-popping stretching that made her sound a lot older than twenty-three, she exited the room and began gathering up her various knives and armaments, putting them back where they belonged.

Adrian, despite having been by all appearances asleep up until then, grumbled cautiously, like he was wondering just what she was going to do with them. Skyler shrugged her shoulders.

"Yeah, well, I'm headed out, and I'm not planning on going with just my rugged good looks to stun your buddies. Not sure what your plan is, but you can do whatever, as long as it doesn't involve fucking _eating me_."

He grumbled. Hearing a quiet clinking noise, she saw he was messing with her tags again. Whatever floated his boat, she guessed. She headed up the little set of stairs and out into the main shop.

Considering what she'd seen last night, it was practically peaceful. Past the windows, the sun shining off the freshly-fallen carpet outside created a prismatic effect, the breeze wafting a few loose flakes through the air. There was nobody in sight to disturb it. A creaking sound startled her, but it turned out to be Adrian slinking up and out behind her.

So far, so good. Everything looked still and nothing jumped out. Skyler opened the door, stepped out…

And within the instant, she was hit by an explosion of snow as a shrieking, furious blur hit the ground hardly inches away from her. They'd known she was here, and they'd been fucking _waiting_.

"HOLY SHITSUCKING CHRIST! MOTHERFUCK!" A stream of every curse she could think of left her mouth as she scrambled back. Her hand reached for her assault rifle, before her brain caught up and remembered she was out of ammo. She swore louder and tore the Bowie from her belt. Holding a weapon was better than nothing, at least.

The Hunter was already recovering from the near-miss and rolling to face her. This one was clad in black, taller than either her or Adrian by a couple of heads (which wasn't saying much, but still) and thicker, like someone who had actually been eating.

Skyler backed up enough to give herself some breathing room, tensed to duck or to slash at anything exposed long enough. Fuck, what was Adrian doing? He wasn't in on this, was he? A snarl behind her caused her to jerk that way. She saw two more of them slinking about the edge of a rooftop, backs to the sun, including what she thought was the kid leaper from the night before.

One. Two. Three. This was an _ambush_ , and she'd fallen right into it.

In the same moment that the big Hunter readied to lunge for her, a sharp shriek sounded from just off to the side. Adrian slammed into him with surprising force, lashing at his face with his nasty set of claws. The other Hunter yelped, briefly staggered, and swiped back, but Adrian danced away from the strike. Skyler took the opportunity to slash at the back of that black hoodie, eliciting a roar of pain and anger. Nothing vital, but she wasn't sticking around long enough to see how much she'd pissed him off. Another howl rang out from atop the building, as if in response.

With the larger Hunter momentarily stunned, Adrian gathered himself into a crouch, head twitching quickly from her to the other infected, and from the sounds that were leaving him she imagined he was probably deciding whether to turn on her, or him.

"YOU LITTLE SHIT! THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL **YOU** , TOO! I SWEAR TO GOD!"

When that didn't shake him she gnashed her teeth and darted forward, actually grabbing onto one of his scrawny arms and giving a solid pull, which might not have been the greatest snap decision because he did in fact attempt to bite her, likely only missing due to surprise.

"Adrian! _Come on_."

She heard a low thud as at least one of the Hunters from atop the building hit the ground, closing in. Even the injured one was quickly shaking it off. Amazingly he seemed to get it, and despite catching bared teeth and an overly-bright look in his eyes he followed in step as her boots pounded over the pavement, dropping to a running crouch.

The only way she was going to make it out of this in one piece was by outwitting them. This was some _serious_ trouble.

 **-x-**

Adrian wanted to _fight_. After terrible amounts of inaction and now the sweet song of adrenaline pounding through him with his heartbeat, the urge ran strong and deep, but he struggled to keep some sort of _thinking_. He couldn't afford to let the haze overwhelm him, not with danger on every side. The smell of clean prey and the call of her sweat and stress didn't make things any easier.

Oh, the other Jumping Ones sounded angry. He didn't dare take the time to look behind, but he heard the snarls, even the faint click of teeth snapping together. They were both dead for sure if they caught up.

But still... for the first time in however many days, the pain wasn't too much to handle, and the motions were all very _natural_. Run. Dodge, turn. Pavement under his limbs. Do _not_ get caught. Just keep running. Even the threat of enemies at his back was an enticing kind of thrill. All of it had him buzzing.

The monster was having a hard time keeping pace. For all of her aggression, she just wasn't as fast at a full run as another Jumping One. Part of him managed to wonder if she was going to make it. Pursuits like this usually turned into a contest of endurance, and she seemed to be lacking in comparison. Then again, at this point so was he, but somehow? He was having a difficult time bringing himself to fully care.

Her voice focused him on the entrance to a building nearby. She was trying to confuse their pursuers, to lose them with twists and turns. Excellent. Maybe she was better at this than he'd thought. He took the lead, bounding across the room.

At the sight of stairs leading up, he debated for a split second. Was he able to take the rooftops again in this state? The thought made his blood race, but a growl went through him when he realized that the answer, for now, was likely no. Soon. Instead, he made a break for another exit he spotted at the back. There wasn't time to keep an eye on what the monster was doing, but in the glimpse he got of her, she momentarily paused to pick up some sort of object.

The exit was closed, but it was one of the ones he could see through, which meant it could easily be broken if he was willing to take a little injury. He brought up an arm over his face and was prepared to rush it when he was thrown off by a yell from the monster. He growled in anger, but before he had time to do much else, she swung her object at the clear barrier with an impressive amount of force. It shattered into pieces on impact, but neither of them were cut. He rumbled in surprise. This had never really been something that had clicked as a possibility for him. The Clean Ones seemed to have an odd talent for things like that.

Claws skidding over the ground and the accompanying grumbles told him that it was time to keep moving, though. He dived out the exit after the monster, quickly taking the head again, and she seemed strangely ready to follow. A shot of pride went through him at this.

 _He_ was the one in charge now. Yes, he thought he liked that feeling.

Their best chance at survival was to make their path as difficult to follow as possible, and then find someplace safe to wait it out in. As eager as he was for violence, a pack versus two wasn't a winnable fight. Of course, there was also the monster… In fact, he was pretty sure the only thing keeping him from turning on her was the pressing need to stay on the run.

Luckily for him, he got what he wanted, in a sense. A weak Other came screaming and flailing around the bend he was headed towards, likely alerted by the commotion and the smell of prey. Most of the time, even these ones wouldn't get in the way of so many smart Others in one place. With a sharp snarl he reared up to collide with it, and then swiped his claws over its throat deep as he could. The flesh opened up beautifully, and the spray of blood onto his face practically sang. He mourned that he couldn't spend more time here. Behind him came a sick _crunch_ , which he assumed was from the monster finishing the job.

This- this was incredible. Sure, he was starting to hurt in a very real way, but they had an actual chance at surviving this. At evading an entire _pack_ of ones like him. His teeth bared as, exhausted, he started to grin.

They could do this. They could _do_ this.

 **-x-**

Well son of a bitch. The kid seemed to really know what he was doing here. Maybe Skyler should have expected as much, in the sense that who would know how to deal with a Hunter better than another Hunter, but it was still a sight to see. For real she was glad she was behind him rather than in front, because judging by the work he'd done to that common he was just dying to get his claws into something.

He was leading her in a meandering path through back alleys and side streets. She doggedly hung onto her handy Plank-O'-Whacking and oh god, were her legs burning. Holy shit. How could this kid have nearly died a few days ago and been so fucking _fast_? This was unfair. _She_ didn't get any weird mutant abilities.

"Hold the fuck up," she gasped, not that he seemed to pay it any mind. As a matter of fact, the only break in his stride was to kick off a brick facade and catch hold of a low-hanging drainage pipe, using the momentum of it to swing himself up and in through the open window above it. Skyler came to a halt and practically smacked into the wall. She gaped upwards at where he'd vanished, wondering how the hell she was supposed to get up there. Then she made the mistake of looking behind her and winced, hearing too-familiar animalistic growls gaining whatever ground they may have lost. She pounded a fist on the wall, eye widening. "YO! ADRIAN!"

Only about five seconds had passed, but it was enough time to give her a heart attack before he came back out and onto the pipe, reaching down one hand and if she didn't know any better, she'd think he was exasperated with her inability to just scale buildings the same way. It was a definite struggle, and along the way the plank fell from her hands, but after a couple of tries she caught it and felt herself being roughly helped up in the same way.

"Oh ha ha, you little asshole," she gasped out as she hauled herself in. "Real funny. Just leave me down there to-" She trailed off when she got a fleeting glimpse of his face from that angle. "MOTHERFUCKER! Are you fucking grinning at me?!"

His face was messed-up enough that she couldn't say for certain, but she was almost entirely sure. If that didn't sell it, the decidedly pleasedhuff he gave did. Her mind was blown. He was having fun with this. Skyler gave him a shove once she was up to her feet.

"I can't believe this. Ham it the hell up when we're _not_ about to die." Wow. Amazing that _she_ was the one saying this for once, but then again, she was also the one in danger of not keeping up. Nothing verbal was needed for him to start moving again and for her to follow in his apparently experienced footsteps.

Fascinatingly, he did seem to be at something of an advantage here, and she thought she was starting to see what was going on. The way he traversed this path told her that this area had been his stomping ground for a considerable amount of time, every turn he took certain. Whereas these other Hunters, they didn't have that. Newbies in town, maybe? Or at least to this little corner of the city. Whatever the case may be, they seemed to be having a hard time keeping a bead on them.

She clambered through the living room and kitchen of the apartment they'd landed in, tripping over a coffee table in her hurry. She could see the back door out of the kitchen left open, onto a snow-blown balcony overlooking the next complex. Okay. Looked like a fire escape. She could get out there, and-

And the metal ladder was crumpled uselessly on the ground. So much for that plan. Adrian was perched precariously on the edge of the balcony and, as she watched, he launched himself smoothly off the edge and rolled into the waiting window of another apartment just across the way. She fully expected him to vanish from sight again, but instead, this time he lingered within view and simply stared back.

"You've got to be kidding me," she wheezed. Of course, this was no joke, and standing around gawking would probably allow time for her to get _eaten_.

Shit, uh. Okay. Hit it rolling, she guessed. Just like Adrian had done. Preferably without putting too much thought into how if she missed, she was going to plummet and probably snap something important. Skyler stepped back a few feet, keeping her eyes fixed on the open window the entire time. Paused for a second and then, with the best running start she could get, she gunned it. Right at the end as she jumped her feet slid on the icy balcony, and the plunge her gut did couldn't quite be described. **FUCK**! She was totally going to wipe out, this was the stupidest thing she possibly could have-!

She made it. Just barely, and her roll was sloppy enough to leave her with what she knew was going to be a nasty bruise. Adrian surveyed her and oh god she could just sense the amusement. But hey, she wasn't dead! So that was already better than expected. Her heart was still beating a mile a minute.

That was as much pause as she got before returning to a punishing run. The rooms were strewn with personal effects; even a dress mannequin clad in a flowery skirt and pink blouse lay upturned, as if the residents had to decide at a moment's notice just what they were going to carry with them, but right now the stuff posed more of a hazard than anything.

Another door knocked off of its hinges led them onto a central stairwell and, to her slight dismay, of course the kid was headed _up_ rather than down. She couldn't help but wonder if maybe they'd already lost the other Hunters at this point, though. She could hear nothing behind them, and no teeth suddenly came out of nowhere to snap at her. Maybe they were all clear?

She… she had to stop, though. At least for a second. She was starting to stagger, and her lungs felt ready to explode. Panting, she held up a hand, doing her best to convey this. Involuntary as it may have been, she slowed as she shoved open one of the fifth-floor doors.

"Oh Christ," she got out raggedly, shaking her head. "Just give me- a minute here. Fucking… leaper shit. Not cut out for this."

It was pretty obvious that he didn't understand her and grumbled in protest at the stop, jerking his head and twitching very pointedly back towards their path upward, but to his credit he surprisingly didn't just leave her in the dust there, for whatever reason. Skyler lurched into the relatively secluded spot, hoping this would at least give her some sort of cover. She wasn't yet to her mid-twenties and she was already too old for this. Goddamn. She leaned against the wall by one of the windows, still too on alert to actually sit down.

It was then that she saw it. Somewhere out on the rooftops beyond, the movement of a solitary figure caught her eye. Oh no. Oh hell no. Another Hunter?

 _Four_ , her brain ticked off, the cherry on top of the whole mess. _Not three. Four._

Something about this one in particular though, was… Skyler narrowed her eye in closer examination. She could make out some detail, if she squinted. This one didn't seem to have spotted her yet, and remained some distance from the others. Female, possibly? Only slightly larger than Adrian's size, and wearing a bloodied, wind-beaten pink jacket and practical sweatpants. She stood alone on the rooftop, alert and observant over the surroundings. And then she motioned down towards the street below her, no doubt at her comrades, and then jerked her head in the correct direction all while Skyler's gut did a flip. Even Adrian seemed to notice what she was gawking at, and gave a low hiss.

She was _coordinating_ the rest of them. Like a thinking fucking thing.

By the time that Skyler looked directly at her again, her gaze was met almost directly by a tilt of her hooded head. Then, the teeth bared.

NOPE! Nope nope nope, she was definitely getting the fuck out of here, pronto! Relying on a burst of energy she hadn't realized she still had, surely brought on by sheer "what the fuck", she floored it back out to the stairwell, ahead of Adrian. She hoped he had a plan, because she wasn't looking forward to dealing with whoever _that_ was and her team of leapers. Worse yet, as they approached the top, she could definitely hear something breaking into one of the rooms far below.

Predictably, the roof access door had also been busted. A gust of frigid air hit her in the face as she staggered out. The rooftop was mostly fenced in, aside from one side of it that had a gaping hole in the chain link, the only apparent way out of here that wasn't back the way they'd come. And beyond it was… an expanse. At least a twenty foot gap between this and the landscaped rooftop next, and a _drop_. She didn't even have to ask. Just shook her head.

"No. _No_."

There was no way this was happening. Maybe that last jump had been doable, but this was something entirely else. There was just no way possible for a normal human to manage this, and while one of them wasn't precisely a normal human, she was doubtful of the shape he was in. Ah, hell. She was going to die here entirely because she'd trusted a fucking infected to have some brilliant plan.

If Adrian was aware of the impossibility of this, there was no indication, and he seemed to be gearing up and carefully gauging the distance. The muscles in his back and legs visibly rolled, and his claws curled as she could feel his eyes flickering back to her. He paused expectantly, but what he wanted her to do was past her. She threw out her arms, and after waiting for too long, she finally got it when he slowly patted a hand over his own back. 'Hang on'.

"You expect me to-? Uh… no. I don't trust like that," she yelled over the whistle of wind. It wasn't changing anything, though, and the excited shriek that sounded from inside the complex had her quickly reevaluating her options. "OKAY, OKAY! FUCK! LET'S GO FOR IT!"

Oh god, this was weird as shit. Wrapping her arms around his neck had her dangerously close to a faceful of his filthy-ass clothes and this close she could actually hear the manic thrum of his heart and the rumble that went through his whole body. She was the world's worst koala and she wasn't sure what he thought was going to happen considering she was nearly as big as him. His muscles bunched and flexed under her. Then he was _running_. And seconds later, to her amazement and horror, airborne.

Now Skyler wasn't a weak-stomached woman. She'd like to think of herself as the opposite. But with the wind whipping past her, beating at her hair and her clothes, getting a glimpse of the blurred street below for that one nauseating second, only kept from splattering by the death-grip of her arms and legs around Adrian… Well. She screamed. He screamed, sounding quite a bit more excited about it. She was pretty sure something else was screaming, too. Everything was screaming and she was about to hit the ground at like a million miles an hour.

" **AAAHHH SON OF A BITCH-** "

Landing on something solid jarred her like hell, but after a moment, she realized she definitely wasn't dead, and not in a mangled heap on the street below. She blinked hard now that she could open her eye, taking in labored panting, her own shock, and the simple fact that they'd actually made it. Slowly, as it sank in, throat still raw, she dissolved into an incredulous laugh.

"Holy shit," she got out, low and unabashedly awed. In all of her time kicking around, she'd never done anything quite like that. " _Badass_."

It took her a moment to both pry herself off and notice that Adrian was giving an odd sort of tremble now, and then he started into some sound that at first she didn't even recognize. After a tick, it clicked in her fatigued brain that he… he was laughing too. Hesitant and rough, but sounding just as stunned and relieved as she was. Jesus fuck. He could goddamn _laugh_. She didn't know how to react to this, and so, unable to help it, she continued to laugh with him.

And then without notice, he gradually trailed off and slumped, his head rolling before he went facedown. Uh-oh.

Sharp alarm setting in once again, she gave him a rough nudge, attempting to stir him. "Kid! Adrian!"

He gave a weak mumble at the jarring, so he was alive, at least. The shifting revealed fresh splotches of red on the snow beneath his stomach, which gave a pretty good indication of what was happening. In any case, he was more or less unconscious, at the worst possible time for it.

A soft scraping sound came from above, and Skyler made the mistake of looking up, because there she was. Miss Pink, crouched right on top of the rooftop they'd come from and framed by the hole in the fence where Skyler could get a nice, long look at her. Close enough to see the thick curls surrounding her face and the stylized dancer on her gory shirt. She didn't attack immediately, turning her head in eerily intelligent investigation. Her posture was akin to a curious cat, but she held herself more seriously, somehow.

 _Looking for an all-clear._

After a bit of this observation, the lady Hunter gave a soft growl, and then turned back towards the roof access and repeated the same gesture from earlier. The other three filed out after her, little one included, and at that moment, Skyler could imagine Pink in particular looked pretty satisfied as she took the lead headed for the roof's edge.

 _Crack!_

The entirely unexpected and yet familiar sound of a sniper rifle echoed over the buildings. Concrete chips flew as a slug embedded into the rooftop close enough to Pink that she threw herself to the side with an alarmed yelp. Adrian gave a groan of distress, but didn't seem aware of what was actually happening. What in the fuck?! Who else was out here?!

Finally Skyler spotted the shooter, only several buildings away, perched out on a balcony with the barrel of a scoped rifle leaned up on what had formerly been a flower basket. Had they been there the whole time? The other survivor rose to their feet. This was… a teenaged girl. Maybe old enough to have been a student here, but no older. Heavily outfitted in a bulletproof vest and weapon holsters, and so streaked with blood, even through her blonde hair, that if she hadn't just shot a high-caliber weapon then she might have been mistaken for one of the infected. Fixated, Skyler watched her stare Pink directly down, a sharp grin spreading over her face.

"Alpha," Skyler read off of the shooter's lips. Pink snarled. Somehow Skyler got the impression this tango had happened already. The sniper beckoned, goading.

Pink wavered, gaze moving from Skyler and then to the new arrival. The rest of her pack seemed rearing to go, and to an extent so did she, but before the shooter had time to reload, she turned one final, baleful growl back at the balcony and nodded back towards the doorway. The smallest one gave a high-pitched keen down at Skyler, but was ushered back in with them. Gone.

What a hell of a way to find out that she wasn't the only survivor out here.

The sniper sighed, shaking her head. "Again," she groaned melodramatically, audible from where she was. "Eventually. One of these days." It was only at this point that she turned her focus on Skyler. "Ugh. Been at this for at least a week and a half, I've-" The girl trailed off in mid-sentence, surprise painted all over her face just like the blood splattered there and her lips parting a little bit. "Oh hello there," she started over, her posture immediately shifting into an inviting lean and her eyes wide.

"Uh? Hi."

Clocked out as he was, Adrian still responded to the sound of an uninfected voice, giving a weak attempt at a growl so slurred she wasn't sure that it counted and tried to lift his head. She shushed harshly, hoping from this distance it was possible he could be mistaken as an injured survivor. How much had this girl seen? She didn't look too concerned, which was probably a good sign. Maybe.

The stranger rubbed at the back of her neck. "Aha. Wow. Excuse me, I just didn't… expect to see a girl out here, did I give you my name? I should give you my name." She gestured politely outwards. "Hello. I'm Cat. I am very pleased to meet you, and I _love_ the whole 'Army tough' thing you have going on."

Cat. Right. "Skyler," she called back, a little hesitant just from the strangeness of it all. "And, uh. Adrian."

Likely not meant to be overheard, Skyler managed to catch something along the lines of, "Oh I am too gay for this," before the girl cleared her throat and nodded eagerly. "Cool, cool. Hey, is that a leaper you've got there?"

The question was thrown out as casually as asking someone what they'd brought for lunch, and yet Skyler's heart did a little tapdance anyways. Deciding to go for broke and see what the reaction would be to the truth, she nodded. "Guess so," she explained simply.

Cat gave a slow nod, and then held up a classic thumbs-up of approval. "Neat. Got no idea what you've got going on there, but you do you." That was it. No other questions asked. "Hey, listen. I'm gonna get a move on. Hope to see you around?"

Whoa. Wait. How long had it been since this girl had seen another person that wasn't trying to kill her? And she just says "see ya"? "You don't want to group up, or, uh, I don't know. Ask me about the _Hunter_ , maybe?" she asked, dumbfounded.

She paused in gathering up her weaponry for a moment to wrinkle her face in thought. "Mmh. Eh. Don't worry though, I'll be around. Good luck!"

With a wave of goodbye, Cat sauntered into her office building and disappeared from sight. A minute went by where Skyler stared blankly at the spot where this girl had been, before raising an eyebrow of her own and looking down at the unconscious Adrian to give voice to the biggest question that was on her mind.

"What the fuck was _that_ all about?"


	12. Skin

**-x-**

" _So,uh. Run this by your buddy again, to make sure I'm hearing you right."_

Skyler reclined back on the queen-sized bed, radio in hand and feet up in the air. The roof access had led down into a hotel, as it turned out, which while not a safe house was pretty cushy diggings even if it wasn't as secured as she would have liked. From the looks of it, the place had been used as a holdover for people crossing through on their way to evac. Signs of traffic were heavy, as were signs of it having been abandoned for some time now. Most importantly, though, was the discovery she'd made some time after showing up; the place had a goddamn gas generator with at least a little bit of juice left in it. Now _that_ was certainly interesting.

"Oooh my god, it was badass. An entire fucking pack of leapers behind us, man. You know those movies when there's the chase sequence and they've got to make a big jump? That's what it felt like. I was all like, " _nooo"_ , but we totally made it. Fucking adrenaline rush."

" _I thought the kid with you was hurt? Like, stabbed or something?"_

"He'll get over it. Probably."

" _Right, right. That's, uh, cool? Anyways. So, like, you're saying there was another survivor out there? The one who scared them off?"_

Her nose wrinkled at the memory of the girl, still clueless what to make of the whole thing. "Mmh. Said her name was Cat. Seemed happy enough to be off doing her own thing. You know… weirdly so. Not sure what kind of vibe I'm getting from her."

" _I'm, uh, gonna be straight with you, Skyler. Everything you're telling me keeps getting weirder and weirder."_

She groaned softly, raising her head a bit to look across the room at her conked-out "companion". There were still a couple of very _minor_ details that she'd left out, mostly about his… state. "It's so weird. You don't know half of it."

" _Sure I don't. Listen, though, you're doing good. Still being alive? Definitely a perk. Keep on keeping on, you hear? You'll be out of there soon enough."_

Skyler was still laying there contemplating just what to say and how much she should tell him when Adrian abruptly sat up with a gasping snarl, swiping vaguely in the direction of her and the radio. The way that he looked around gave weight to her assumption that he had no idea where the hell they were. She was hardly shaken by the implied violence by now, but alerted by the fact that he was actually awake. He'd stirred several times since collapsing on the rooftop which had been the only way she'd managed to get him inside of the building with her, but he'd seemed to be almost sleepwalking, thoroughly dazed and unaware of what was going on.

"...I'll get back to you. Thanks, Four Dog."

" _Peace be with you, sister."_

Skyler powered off the radio. In all seriousness, the way Adrian acted, it was like he was compelled to destroy even the hint of an uninfected person, which made her wonder how safe she actually was in their apparent truce. There was a weird dissonance between that and the fact that mere hours before, she'd witnessed him _smiling and laughing._ Yeesh. That was almost more jarring than him being capable of tears.

She hauled herself back up into a sitting position, waving down at the confused Hunter, who by now was shifting uncomfortably and plucking at his clothes, likely realizing that something had been messed with while he'd been out of it. "'Sup."

After a moment she shook her head in disbelief. "For real, though. Can hardly believe you actually got that far. Didn't you _feel_ that?" From the look she'd taken while rebandaging, all of the activity had more than certainly made a damn mess of his larger gut injury. Still held together, at least, but quite a few of the stitches were popped. Hopefully the cursory tending-to would be enough to hold him over, because she wasn't sure she was willing to go through having to sew him back up just yet.

It was unsettling that there'd hardly been an indication until he'd literally collapsed, either. The infected really earned their reputation for being relentless. It also raised questions about exactly how near to death he'd come, and if she was going to have to keep an eye on this kid to make sure he didn't kill himself doing some shit like running a marathon while bleeding to death.

All of this was something she would have time to think about later, though. For now, she was totally going to take advantage of these five-star accommodations that afforded her the luxury of being able to clean up beyond wiping her face with a dirty rag. She slipped behind him on her way to the bathroom while he was still getting his bearings.

Now that Skyler was a little more settled, she was so eager to get out of her ripped-up, bloodied, soot-encrusted clothes that she started stripping out of her gear before she even reached the door. It was only when she was about to toss her shirt up and over her head that she really recalled there was someone else there. When she looked back over her shoulder, he was indeed watching her, too, though he looked more baffled than anything. She snorted a little.

"What, kid? You forget these come off or something? No wonder you're still wearing those rags."

With that, she resumed what she was doing, baring her back to the occupied bedroom. If he was going to gape that was his problem, but she couldn't give less of a shit. In any case, he went skittering under cover of the bed with a rattling hiss as soon as she flipped the bathroom light on anyways. Her chuckle was cut short, though, as she got a good, illuminated view of the shallow cuts on her chest and cringed. Between those, her face, and everything else, this was going to be… a project.

"Ugh. I am an _entire_ mess to clean up," Skyler groaned, before turning on the shower.

 **-x-**

It wasn't anything unusual for Adrian to wake up confused. More often than not, it took him a while to sort out exactly where he was and what was happening. This time, though, was especially jarring. He had vague memories of running, jumping, gleefully so. That was good. Except no, there had also been Others. Now they were gone, and he'd woken up someplace strange with voices that were there but not there again, and… and something was seriously, _seriously_ wrong with the monster.

That was the most bizarre part in all of this. She couldn't possibly feel safe enough to bare herself, could she? She was… _vulnerable_. Yes, he hadn't killed her… yet… but she had no reason to believe that he wouldn't. Or maybe by now she'd gotten confident, and thought that he wasn't a serious threat to her. The thought ruffled him and he let out an experimental growl in the direction she'd gone off in. He got the feeling that the sound she gave in response was dismissive, and he snorted irritably.

He… couldn't deny that he was starting to feel more secure with her presence at the same time though, bit by bit. At the very least, the drive telling him that he had to stay alert because she could decide to attack him at any moment was quieting. Did that mean he could kill her now? As usual, excitement rose at the thought of it, urging him onward. But, no. Hesitation still weighed him down, keeping him in place. Things would be so much simpler if whatever this thing was would go away; It was unsettling in ways he couldn't quite explain to have his instinct pulled in different directions.

After a while of hiding in his small, dim spot, he snorted and edged out just far enough to try to get a look into the other room. What was she doing, anyways? He'd lost sight of her, and then bright light and some sort of sudden _hissing_ sound had startled him. Strange things seemed to follow her, and he didn't begin to understand most of what she did in general. Still, it did make him curious.

Maybe unwisely, he continued to creep out farther until he was crouched in the open again. It smelled… wet in there. Like when water fell from the sky, but indoors was usually sheltered from that, wasn't it? He smacked his dry lips, realizing then just how thirsty he was. Water would be good.

Maybe he really should investigate this closer.

 **-x-**

Skyler had only bothered to shut the shower curtain out of ingrained habit, and yet it still sent a shudder up her spine when a shadowed outline came into view from the other side of it. Ack. Creepy creepy creepy. Thankfully she had one of her knives sitting in the soap tray, just in case.

"I see you really _are_ trying for every horror movie cliche in the book besides being a fucking zombie," she grumbled, pausing after she rinsed what she was fairly sure was a chunk of gristle out of her cropped hair. She poked her head out from behind the curtain to see what he'd gotten himself up to.

Adrian was crouched on the tile floor, nose close to her strewn clothes, before lifting his head to stare openly at her.

She arched her brows and snorted, which melted into a cringe when a bit of soap got washed into a cut. "Listen, you're in for some tough luck if you think you can make me blush. I've been sharing a shower with, like, ten other people for the past few months." To prove her point, she left the curtain open a crack and turned her butt-ass naked self around in a circle. "Woo."

By the time she looked back, he'd gathered up most of her clothes into a wad. What? What was he- "Hey wait no, no-!"

Skyler held up her arms, but it was too late, and they were messily flung into the tub with her. Despite her best efforts, they still got a good soaking before she could get them back out. Great. Not that her clothes had been in fantastic shape at this point, but she'd really rather not have to put them on soaking wet. She threw him a flat look of disapproval. "Oh come _on_ , kid. I can't possibly look _that_ bad."

Still though, his posture was oddly nervous as he lingered there. He shifted, sort of rocking on his feet and rubbing at his own clothes as if trying to hold them to him. For a second, she really did have to stop and think about how weird this might look to someone who had no idea what she was doing and she frowned in thought. Then, with all of the modesty that she was known for, she pulled the curtain wide.

"See? Nothing nightmarish going on here. Just… me getting clean. Thrill a minute."

There was another pause of a few moments before, slowly, he crept towards the tub. His stare was intent, although really not what one might expect from a teenage guy getting an eyeful of naked girl, but even if she were looking about ten times better than she was, she wouldn't doubt that wasn't exactly the first thing on his mind. One clawed, shaky hand rested on the rim of the bathtub as he slunk close to the floor like a skittish animal. She couldn't resist snorting at the thought of this Hunter, this creature known for being the bane of lone survivors, being half-petrified of a damn bathtub, and then again when he practically jumped out of his skin when she flicked a few droplets of water his way.

"You're a weird kid, you know that?"

There wasn't much sign of apparent murder yet though, so she made the decision that she could continue to let this fly. For now.

 **-x-**

Pink and the brackish color of accumulated grime tinged the water as it ran in streams off of the monster. It swirled around and around by her feet before vanishing as he stared, fixated by the motion even as his poor frazzled brain tried to make some sense of this. It seemed… not right for her to be washing the blood off herself. Blood was something prized, especially blood _not your own_. It was a sign of your kills, your fights, and sometimes a reminder of the rush of good feelings that came with it. The more blood, the better. To be uncovered, and to be willingly cleaning it off was inviting attack, and despite it not being him, it somehow gave him the nervous twitches anyways.

In everything that she did, the question kept coming up, though; was she really so unafraid? It was hard to imagine just _not being afraid_ for all that long. A pang of… something rose up as his claws flexed on the smooth surface they rested on. Jealousy, maybe? It was similar to the feeling when an other had something that he wanted.

Finally he managed to shake himself from the lull he'd fallen under and huffed, instead looking up at the monster, a little more irritably than before for reasons he couldn't quite place. She wasn't even drinking this water, so she… she couldn't get all that defensive if he took some. Maybe.

Watching her carefully for a reaction, he reached out, but all she really seemed to do was watch _him_ with the same amount of caution. The sensation when the falling water ran over his hand was stunning, enough so that he stumbled backward and let out a rumble of sheer surprise. It took him a few seconds to catch up with the fact that the feeling hadn't been _bad_. It was… warm? He blinked hard, ignoring the monster's snort of amusement before putting his hand back under the stream. Yes. Strangely enough, it was warm as blood. Very much unlike the frigid, drenching water that came from the sky. Pleasant. Maybe that was why she was doing this to herself.

A low, continuous "purr" began to leave him, and he swayed on his feet, only shaking himself a moment later when he realized he'd been about to lapse back into sleep. Yes, he liked this. Driven by a dazed want for more of this good feeling, he climbed about halfway over the low wall before he gave much thought to what he was doing. He froze, head jerking up to make sure he wasn't being attacked. No aggression readily came, though the monster's fingers drummed by her stabbing thing, ready to strike even now.

This was… this was incredible. It was a very different kind of enjoyment than what came with the killing, and wasn't nearly as intense, but it was nice in its own way. In fact it was sort of opposite, soothing rather than biting and manic. He felt less ready to explode on the inside. His coverings were soaked through and heavy within seconds, but he didn't mind much. All but the ever-vigilant back of his mind nearly forgot about the monster for the moment. That was, at least, until she rapped sharply on the wall, drawing his attention.

" _Adrian!"_

What? What did she want? She was rubbing her own bare skin on her arms, obviously trying to get something across. Not understanding, he plucked at his own fabric, before the thought came that… Wait, she didn't expect him to expose his skin too, did she?

 _Trap,_ whispered a wordless voice in his consciousness, and that was the idea he immediately latched onto. What else would it be? His layers of coverings were often the only thing that stopped claws from breaking through to his skin. It was nerve-wracking enough trying to find somewhere hidden to partially uncover to relieve himself. No, he… he couldn't.

The monster began to crouch down beside him, only giving a low sound of mild anger and pausing briefly when he swatted out at her and didn't even manage to graze her with claws. And then she was reaching- trying to get her hands on-

His heart thudded wildly and he gave a rattling hiss, eyes darting rapidly enough as he scrambled backwards that there was a terrifying moment of something catching his eye and convincing him for a split-second that there was something else lurking around the edges of the room with them.

 _Not real,_ he did his best to assure himself, and it was almost reflexive at that point that he reached for the shiny thing in his pocket, fidgeting nervously. It was grounding, somewhat. Took the edge off the panic at least.

But… she hadn't brought harm to him the last time she'd touched him, even though she could have. In fact, she'd _helped_ him, hadn't she? Maybe, if he could just… make himself be still…

His muscles strained. He physically ached with the urge to strike out, and by now that almost-voice was _shrieking_ at him. _Don't. Stop. BAD. NO._ And yet somehow, he managed to keep himself rooted to the spot, even as one of her hands closed around his shoulder and his skin jumped.

He could only hope that this wasn't an awful mistake.

 **-x-**

Well, this was arguably already going a bit better than Skyler had expected it to. As it turned out, there was no problem at all getting this kid into the bathtub; apparently, that only came with trying to get his filthy ass out of his clothes. But fuck, they had to come off somehow. For one, she wasn't going to have him hanging around in this state if he did in fact plan on hanging around. Secondly, all that grime in healing wounds was just asking for infection. And last but not least, sweaty, bloody, _soggy_ clothes smelled like Satan's musty ballsack.

Adrian's entire body was quivering like a tuning fork under her fingers, but no strike came, yet, anyways. She nodded, honestly fairly impressed. "Restraint" wasn't exactly a quality she was expecting to see in one of the infected, considering the frequency with which they rushed directly into situations that were sure to get them killed.

"Alright, liking where this is going. Let's continue this whole "not trying to murder me" trend. Looks pretty good on you. Now let's, uh…"

Awkwardly, she started to tug and shift at his sweatshirt first. A sharp growl did indeed rip from him when it caught over his head, blinding him, which fortunately prevented him from catching her with his flailing. When she finally managed to get him free, he looked downright baleful, and wouldn't luck have it that he had another shirt on underneath it so she had to do it all over again?

Jeez though. She started to really get an idea of the kind of beating he'd taken out there, from the fact that he had at least a few gashes going all the way through the compression top that was the final layer of this ratty clothing onion. Apparently being infected wasn't enough to stop you from being attacked by other infected, after all. Aside from that, nearly every inch of him looked cut, bruised, or otherwise marred by sores which she was willing to bet were about half from the infection, half from never taking a damn bath.

A weird half-laugh left her, and she couldn't help looking down at her own collection of gnarly scars, most of them far older than the mauling she'd taken from the Hunter right in front of her and some predating even the whole apocalypse. "Look at us, kid. We sure as fuck ain't pretty, but we're alive, aren't we? What a goddamn pair."

Again, the chances of him knowing what she was actually saying were slim to none. And yet, the way he looked at her would almost seem to imply otherwise. Maybe not a true understanding, but a kind of thoughtful look that was suggestive of at least _something_ going on in his head. Of course, she still nearly slipped and busted her ass on the bathtub when he actually reached out and trailed clawed fingers over a jagged white mark from her neck to chest and then near to the shallow gashes that he'd put there himself, but the touch still remained more questioning than violent, even if it was kind of weird to have him more or less touching her titty. She supposed it was only fair though, given how she'd just had her hands all up on his.

"Uh… yeah. Not so bad, is it? Just… don't freak when I go for your pants."

 **-x-**

There was something… both soothing and frightening about the motions he and the monster were going through. At the same time that his heart raced knowing how entirely and utterly exposed that he was, he actually did feel considerably better. His muscles relaxed in a way that he'd never had them _do_ before, and he hadn't even realized the chafe of his coverings against him until it was removed. The ragged "purr" that was coaxed out of him was nearly against his will.

Maybe the most surprising part of it all was how much, up close and without her own coverings, the monster did look so much like… him. Not him specifically, but a bit familiar, recognizable. Like _Sister_ , marked by the wounds of too many fights to count. From something like her, part of him had been expecting they'd been hiding something terrifying, like they'd peel back and reveal the same sort of formless, shadowy creature from his delusions and restless dreams. He didn't know what a monster was supposed to look like, but he didn't think this was how he imagined it. Really even the way he saw her was starting to shift as he became accustomed to it, which was unsettling. If that wasn't certain, then what was?

Just… don't think about that right now. At least it was easy enough to lose himself in the soft drizzle of water. Surprisingly, even the monster's touches felt nice. Even around his injuries, she was unexpectedly gentle. Apparently she was capable of inflicting something other than pain, though he knew well that could change at any second. Occasionally his hands still absently roamed over her in return, taking in details in his own way while uncomfortably trying not to look too long at his own body. She didn't seem to protest this, other than a few senseless noises.

Eventually the water came to a sudden stop, nothing more than a few drops hitting his upturned face before it was just gone. He whined at the loss, scratched around some in search of it, but it wasn't a surprise; good things rarely seemed to last for very long. He sighed through his nose and set his chin down on the edge of the basin defeatedly, to which the monster snorted as she stepped back out into the too-bright room. After some shuffling around, she tossed a soft bit of fabric in at him. It was nice enough, but not _his_ coverings, which by now were soaked entirely through. He snatched it up and huddled himself in it anyways, at least until his weren't so wet and heavy, messily wrapping it so that his eyes were partially shaded.

The monster lingered outside in the little room, closely examining something out of sight. There was something in that one spot that had her attention. Of course, soon he had to wonder what was so interesting there. Still keeping at least a little distance, he slunk up and out after her. Now what was-?

Movement. Instantly he was tensed and ready to go, shoulders rolled back and snarling in anticipation of an attack that never came. An Other? Another Clean One? _There_. By the entrance. Something that looked very much like the monster, face to face with her. And…

Something whispered at the back of his head, up until he reached out a shaking hand and swatted lightly at the image. Not there, not really. Just a picture of the monster, and…

Ice shot down his spine. In the grip of something nameless, numb fingers shakingly brushed his own cheek. He watched as the image before him copied the motions even as on some forgotten habit he tugged the cloth to cover his chest, and deliriously tried to mesh this together. Someone dark-haired and exhausted-looking stared back, but it just wasn't… _right._ Inside he screamed against accepting that this was- was _him_. No matter how he looked at it, it felt wrong. Nothing seemed to belong. Both him and a stranger at the same time.

Frantically the thought arose that he was _changing._ He barely understood the meaning behind it, but the feeling it brought up was raw. Panic, choking panic and the vague but almost physical memory of tremendous pain. No, he- he didn't want that. Changing was bad.

He fumbled for his shiny thing, only to gasp at the renewed realization that he was naked and it wasn't there, and scrambled desperately for his discarded coverings to dig it out. The feeling of it in his hand was steadying as he squeezed it and shut his eyes tight. His heart thudded audibly and his breath came hard and fast, almost wishing the rage hadn't abandoned him then because it was just so much easier to deal with than feeling _lost_. Fresh alarm sparked through him when something touched his back, but it was only the monster.

The… the monster. Was that what she was? It was certainly what she'd seemed like, especially covered in the blood of Others and radiating danger. Even now though, vulnerable as they both were, her hands didn't bring further harm. If she wasn't simply something to be killed, though, and she wasn't exactly a monster, then what else was she?

Slowly his manic pulse eased as the irrational fear did. Once he felt sure enough that whatever pain he'd been expecting wasn't coming, he opened his eyes. Despite him knowing enough to tell that the monster looked uncertain herself, she stayed where she was. He drew a deep, bracing breath, in and then out.

Maybe he really was _changing_ again, or maybe this was something else entirely. Either way, he wasn't sure he was ready for it at all. At the same time though, part of him knew that it was already too late to turn and flee from it. He gave the shiny thing one more squeeze.

Whatever did happen, he got the feeling that there was no stopping it now.


	13. The Wicked

**-x-**

It was pitch-dark and must have been past four in the morning when the first pebble hit the window outside the hotel room. At this point, Skyler had just barely managed to pass out after the earlier shower escapades and getting back into clothes, and at first she wanted to pass it off as something blown by the wind. Oh god, don't make her get up off this fucking bed. Soon afterward though, a second followed, plinking off the glass door leading out onto the balcony. Too deliberate to not be purposeful. She heaved out a heavy groan before opening her eye. Well, she supposed she had to check it out. She didn't think the infected got someone's attention by flicking stuff at the windows, but hell, what did she know anymore?

Her stirring roused Adrian- who, surprise surprise, had opted for hunkering down under the bed- slightly. "Yeah, yeah, I'm getting it," she grumbled half unintelligibly. She caught a glimpse of the gleam off his eyes as she stepped out of bed, but waved dismissively. There was no doubt in her mind that he would freak the fuck out if this was in fact another survivor. Although, given the only other uninfected person she'd seen out here, she couldn't say she was sure what was about to go down, either. Best to be prepared in case it turned ugly.

And sure enough, when she shuffled out of the room and stepped out onto the frigid balcony, there she was. Cat had returned to the building across the way and stood on a parallel balcony, a big grin on her face and holding up a large piece of posterboard upon which she'd sharpied, "Meet me outside? :)"

Well, there was absolutely no way this could go horribly wrong. Skyler looked out over the barren expanse of snow-swept city for a few moments in consideration. It was quiet enough that a dozen-odd crows dared to gather around a scrap of something unidentifiable and dead in the street without threat of themselves being snacked on. Finally she exhaled in a cloud of steam and gave a thumbs up. The girl pumped her fist in victory, quickly turning back into the building. A moment later, Skyler followed.

"If I'm not back in an hour, call the cops," she mumbled as she passed by the Hunter's head sticking out from his hiding spot. He started to follow as she got closer to the door, until she stopped and held up her hands. "No. Uh-uh. You are staying right here. You know what "no" means?"

He seemed to give this a good deal of thought, before finally sitting down on the floor and tipping his head up at her and rumbling tentatively.

She flashed a thumbs up. "Fantastic. You've gotten "no" down. That's at least a whole two words. You continue to impress me. And I will be back. Hopefully."

As a further deterrent against him following, she shut the door behind her. From her cursory inspection when they'd got here, it was relatively clear, but she still wasn't taking any chances. Somewhere farther in she heard a muffled, moaning sort of noise that she was fairly certain was a Witch, but she was very much going to let that mellow if she had any choice in the matter. If anything, she was glad for the tougher infected scaring anything else off.

She slowed a bit as she picked her way through the remnants of a makeshift checkup station set up in the lobby. The smell of musty death wafted over the place, but the closest she could find to a source were a few scraps of scattered bone. Among the broken medical equipment and shards of broken glass, she caught sight of at least one intact blood sample, turned clotted and sickly purple with a positive test for the infection. There was a story here, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know it.

Cat was already waiting outside, practically bouncing on her feet.

"Ah! Skyler, you said it was Skyler, right?"

"Uh. Yeah."

"Excellent. So, I've been reading over Teen Vogue's "Top Flirty One-Liners to Try this Year". Would you be open to me taking them for a spin?"

All Skyler could really do was shrug her shoulders and see where this went. "Let's hear them."

"Okay, okay, great! Here goes," she cleared her throat, tugging a crunched page from her pocket, "Hey, cutie, do you need to see my library card? Because I'm checking you out. Is your body from McDonalds? I'm loving it! Could you take a look at my phone? I think something's wrong with it, your number's not- Ah that one doesn't work anymore, just forget about… Never mind."

This was turning out even weirder than expected. "So, uh. This all you got me out here for?"

The younger girl clapped her hands together and rubbed them like she was thinking of something particularly juicy. "Ah haha, no. It is not. I… have something for you." She tugged her pack over one shoulder and dug through it, until she came up with a couple of magazines. And amazingly not the "Teen Vogue" kind, but the exact 5.56x45mm rounds that she needed.

"Holy shit," Skyler breathed out, fairly certain that her remaining eye had just gone pretty wide.

Cat looked understandably satisfied with herself. "You like?"

Okay, so she was willing to put aside some of her initial misgivings for this. "Uh. Fuck yeah? Merry Christmas to me," she enthused as she accepted the ammo. "Where'd you even find this?"

"I know my way around. Got an idea where to look. It is no problem," she assured, waving a hand.

Maybe Skyler had gotten the wrong kind of idea here. She meant, a few months going it on your own with nothing but the infected around would be enough to make pretty much anyone a little funny. Besides that she didn't exactly have much room to speak, spending most of her time looking like something that crawled out of the garbage and or hell.

"So ah. Your buddy," Cat eventually spoke, looking around. It was easy enough to guess what she meant.

"The Hunter."

"Yep! Him. He still around?" After Skyler hummed a confirmation, a playful, wicked gleam came into her eyes. "You wanna ditch him for a little while and come up with me?"

Hell with it. Skyler had just been put into a pretty good mood, and maybe if this girl really did know her way around, she'd figure something out about how she was getting out of here. She started smirking herself, feeling a little like a sneaking teenager. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

A chuckle from the other girl goaded her into her own.

"Come on. Come on, before anything notices us."

She ushered her quickly along across the street and into the opposite building.

* * *

"You know, like. A weird amount about guns for a kid," Skyler mused, maybe an hour into having ventured up into the offices. Currently they were sat on the floor with one of a couple bottles of Old Crow, screwing around with half-assed drinking games on the fly.

Cat snorted a little when she laughed at the statement. "Kid? I'm nineteen. Like, how old are _you_?"

"Listen. In my soul I am a hard fifty-something."

"Fair enough, fair enough." Abruptly her expression became more serious, and her tone shifted to match. "I, uh. Grew up in this kind of compound, right? Sort of one of those "end is nigh" deals. Yeah. Gunpowder, kid brides and all. Real fucked up."

Skyler wasn't quite sure what look was on her own face. "Uh. Shit," she mumbled out lamely, up until Cat started cracking up.

"Nah, nope. Just went on some hunting trips with my dad, messed around with the collection. Got into it on my own. Shot."

Ah, hell. Skyler sighed and poured out another shot of bourbon, downing it in one go.

The girl really wasn't in bad shape, considering how long she'd allegedly been roughing it. She travelled light but with just about all she needed, was wearing the right kind of gear, and had a nice little setup in this office. Either she hadn't been here long or she simply hadn't left much indication that she was there, so she wasn't exactly stupid, either. It didn't answer the question of why she _had_ opted for staying out here in the first place, though. Had she missed the evacs? Was she headed to Mass same as her? It was something she was going to have to find out.

She swished her tongue around the acrid taste left behind in her mouth. "Yeah, well. You wanna know how I picked up the leaper? I was out all on my own, right? And this fucker…" She drew her fingers over the bandages on her face, "Scratched out my fuckin' eye. And so I stabbed him."

Cat deliberated this, visibly turning it this way and that in her head before finally deciding on, "Mmh… calling bullshit on this one. Sounds like something you'd make up for how you lost the eye."

Skyler grinned slowly and victoriously. "Shot."

"Ahhh!" Cat enthused, slamming down her own shot. "You're a kick, you know that? What made you keep him around?"

Now that was the part that was hard to explain, not that it was totally clear even to her, if she really asked herself. "He was… stubborn. Didn't want to die, didn't want to give up. Guess he kind of reminded me of me." Probably the least stupidly sentimental way she could describe it.

Cat gave a considerate nod. "Weird. But I kind of get it. So, uh. I've got another question. You, ah. Into girls?"

Surprise, surprise. "Well, you know. Swing both ways with a knife."

That one got a laugh and nod. "I'm not into…"

"Let me guess. Labels?"

"Men."

It was Skyler's turn to snort. Her buzz was already pretty decent, but not quite enough that she didn't remember some of her misgivings. "I'm, uh. Not interested in anything any time soon," she clarified.

Cat immediately nodded, waving her hands dismissively. "Message received. Can say a lot about me, but I can take no for an answer. Consider it dropped."

For the weird first impression that she'd gotten, this girl was turning out to be unexpectedly cool.

"Yeah, thanks. Let's just keep getting drunk."

* * *

"So, uh. What- what's up with that fuckin' _pack_ of Hunters anyways? They always been hanging around here?" Hours later, three quarters of the bourbon was empty, and they had the radio turned up as loud as they dared without drawing anything to the location for some music.

Cat's face scrunched as she lay sprawled out lazily staring up at the ceiling. "Oh yeah, yeah. I mean. Mmmore or less. This half of the city's new turf for 'em. Been running into them for a while now." She sat up on her elbows and started to smirk. "Used to be five of 'em. Took care of one myself. Pink one's their leader. Hates me, but can't decide if she wants to fuck with me now."

Skyler gave a thumbs up, righting herself when she nearly tipped the photocopier she was sitting atop. "Badass. I mean. 'S kind of the fucked up part of it though, isn't it? Like. Shouldn't give a shit, should they? If they weren't thinking about it."

"''Course they're thinking about it," Cat shrugged. "How you think they can set up ambushes 'n all? 'S it matter?"

Well, yeah. Kind of. She hated getting fucking introspective and drunk. "I don't know, I don't know. 'S just. That kid's got me thinking about stuff more than I like to."

"Fuck thinking about stuff," Cat laughed in response. "Just get stupid and have fun."

"That sounds like the best plan ever." Be nice if it was ever that easy.

"Okay, so. Cat. What's'at short for, anyways, like, Catherine?"

Cat pressed her lips together and hummed. "Mmh. Nope, no. 'S not my name. It's, ah. Cathedral. Parents were, like, those people who wanted me to have a unique name."

Skyler smacked her hand down onto an imaginary buzzer. "Bullshit. 'M calling it."

"Ehhh! Shot. You are _wrong_! This is my actual, real-life name!"

Unrestrained, Skyler laughed out loud. "Ooh my god. That is… fantastic. 'F it makes you feel any better you can join the official club with _Theodora Skyler."_

This was shaping up to be pretty fun after all.

" _Can't stay at home, can't stay in school/ Old folks say, you poor little fool/ Down the streets, I'm the girl next door/ I'm the fox you've been waiting for!"_

 **-x-**

Where _was_ she? It was hard to tell just how long it had been since the monster had left, warped as the Hunter's sense of time was. And however unsure he may still have been of her, he hated _waiting_.

By now he had spent about as long as he could stand pacing the floor, trying to make out patterns in the ceiling, plucking at odd soft objects before finally settling in the water room. The harsh light had gone away, making it far more bearable, so he'd stayed there for a while.

He should… he should really just leave. The monster had shut the entrance behind her, but it wouldn't be impossible to knock it down, if he wanted. There was nothing else here. Nothing besides him, and… and that other him in the image here.

Just looking at it made the hairs on back of his neck raise. At the same time though, there was something about it that captivated him and made him keep staring. It didn't help that whenever he looked away he still felt as though it was watching him while his back was turned. In the absence of anything else to think about besides wherever the monster had gone to, his mind churned dizzily as he laid with his side to the floor.

There was a sense of disconnect with what he was seeing. A clash between recognition and this feeling like someone else entirely. Faintly he could almost swear he heard whispers of nothing understandable that drifted in and out of his awareness. He wondered if this other him was as miserable as he was.

The longer he looked at it, the more convinced he was that he could see differences, too; just a couple, almost too small to notice at first, but if he just… looked a little closer… Adrian's nose wrinkled as he frowned, carefully reaching out a couple of claws to stroke along the surface.

A harsh chill overtook him and his gut plunged uncomfortably. Startled, he quickly got his feet under him and fled from the room, kicking the entrance shut behind him to hide it. Automatically he sought out the smallest and darkest space he could find, heart jumping unevenly. Eyes shut he hid there, unable to shake the feeling of his skin shuddering.

And strangely enough, he found himself wishing that the monster was back.

 **-x-**

"I'm headed up to Boston. Gonna meet up with one of our… extraction teams. Still lookin' for people to pull, you know," Skyler put it out there, the question fairly obvious.

Instead of an immediate response, Cat pushed herself up to sit half up on her elbows, giving her a long look that came across as analyzing. "I'm gonna be real with you, Skyler. 'N my mind, there are… people who aren't really meant for the same kind of world you folks are trying to maintain over there. I get the feeling you might catch me."

That stare felt very intense suddenly. Or maybe it was just because yes, the first thing that went through her head was that she might just know exactly what she meant. A little hesitantly, she nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, I feel you."

A satisfied smile came onto the other girl's face before she edged closer to pat Skyler firmly on her shoulder.

"You can do what you want, Skyler. 'M not the type to tell someone… what to do, how to live their life an' all. I just think we might have a lot in common. Just wanted you to know that."

Up this close, Cat smelled distinctly of old blood and gunpowder. It wasn't as unpleasant as one might think. She still held a faint trace of that smile, playing about the corners of her lips. From a subtler, fainter scent, she was pretty sure she was wearing chapstick, despite there still being a couple little spots of blood crusted on her chin and cheek.

For a moment there, Skyler considered it. Like, really thought about just how long it had been since she'd gotten fucked. She'd thrown herself so deep into service she hadn't really been focused on it. This wasn't the first time she realized that she was feeling pretty pent-up, but right then it did sound damn appealing. And then she opened her mouth and said something stupid.

"I've gotta go."

Cat waved, giving her shoulder another squeeze before letting her go with a low hum of, "See you around."

Yeah. Somehow, she was certain that she would.

"See you."

" _You know we can't slow down, we can't hold back/ Though you know we wish we could/ I said there ain't no rest for the wicked/ Until we close our eyes for good."_


	14. Legion

**-x-**

The last few rays of light were draining from the sky and a thin dusting of cold fell as he and the monster stood out on a ledge overlooking the surrounding area. It made for an excellent perch, the range of vision stretching out and out wonderfully. This was his favorite kind of place, partly because of the sheer excitement and partly because it let him scan as far as possible for any sign of a threat.

Too far for the range of scent, he could make out the largest other Jumping One from the pack tucked up and apparently dozing under an overhang, as the smallest lurked just above. Eventually, the young one shoved a large pile of cold white off onto the sleeping one, wriggling joyously as he hopped down until he was held captive under one arm.

The monster eventually turned from the expanse to him. He could only guess that she was wondering if it was safe, which it should be, as long as they kept a fair distance and upwind. His assent was a low huff and unconcerned glance away from the pack. She bounced her head up and down once- that meant good, right?- and headed back straight through the nest they'd claimed for the past couple of sundowns. That was another thing about her; she really had something against settling down in one spot for very long, didn't she? Or maybe she had some place in mind, which he had no way of knowing. Still though, he followed. He didn't see much choice other than going back the way he'd come.

She'd staggered in around daybreak, smelling of something bitter and biting, layered over what he was almost absolutely sure was the scent of another _Clean One_. It made him linger closer than he should have, scrambling his thoughts enough to make it hard to focus on much else. The tremble in his hands worsened. He yearned to be tearing something apart, if not the source of this scent.

He wasn't quite far gone enough though that he hadn't noticed that she'd been particularly _thoughtful_ since coming back. This was unusual from what he knew of her. He did wonder just what it was that she was thinking about, as they stepped out into the open. Her destination, maybe? What she was going to do next? It was difficult to imagine what might be going through her mind.

 **-x-**

"I could have gotten _fucking laid_ ," Skyler groaned, scrubbing at her face with her palms. She had… she had metaphorical-cockblocked herself in favor of going back to the damned hotel room. What was she doing with her life?

There was nothing to be done for it now, though, and regardless of how grumpy or hungover she was, it was time to get a move on. Nice as some recovery time would be for both of them, she would very much like to get to the meetup point as quickly as possible. Then she could… well. Figure out what she was going to do with this leaper, for one.

She found it questionable whether a "no really, he's been cool about fifty percent of the time" would suffice, and come to think of it, she had no clue just what would happen _after_ that, either; it further occurred to her that it put a really bad taste in her mouth to imagine leading someone who'd already put maybe an unjustified amount of trust in her into being, like, electroshocked or something. It was a bad sign how long it took for the thought of "well then just ditch him" to even pop up, and that it was apparently the last possible option on the plate. Ugh.

There were other things to focus on at the moment, anyways. Skyler may not have been the brightest knife in the drawer, but her instinct had gotten pretty sharp by now, and right now it was telling her to be on guard after seeing that the snow had been trampled into a muddied slush under a multitude of feet sometime not too long ago. The sight seemed to set Adrian into a cautious pace as well, but nothing jumped out at them just yet. Yikes.

"The fuck are you looking at," she mumbled at a solitary common infected sulking around like a sleepwalker in a battered flannel robe, just before it rushed and she capped it. The shot echoed between buildings, causing Adrian to first cringe and bare teeth, then look around in alarm, and then to fix her with the most plain, open-mouthed expression of "what the fuck do you think you're doing" that she'd seen from him yet. Shit. He raised a good point for someone who couldn't fucking talk. She'd lucked out that the sound hadn't drawn anything else. With a sigh, she slung her assault rifle.

As much as it cramped her style to try to get around without causing a stir, this was going decently well, though. They'd fallen pretty smoothly into a routine of sticking close considering how unlikely the arrangement was, and the kid proved to be an adept lookout. Aside from the fact that _he_ had both his fucking eyes, it also was practically like he had eyes in the back of his head, too. Mostly he stood in an awkward, somewhat stooped posture, but occasionally he would drop down into that freaky leaper crawl and slow nearly to a stop, obviously picking up on something she wasn't, before either continuing cautiously or going around. As long as they were still headed the general direction she thought was right, she wasn't going to argue with it either. God, she missed Mapquest.

Skyler kept watch for anything useful during the hike through the business quarter. Go figure that a college town would have a dozen record stores and trendy noodle places, and little in the way of, oh, she didn't know, an actual grocery store or something. Even most of those had already been raided for whatever they might have; smashed glass storefronts and trampled interiors had desperation written all over them. "Poor bastards," she mumbled through a visible grimace at the sight of a long, crusted blood smear leading all the way out through one of the shops, "Just had to grab that last John Meyer album."

What did grab her attention was the Urban Outfitters that still looked at least relatively intact. Man. She'd just been thinking about how her clothes were a tattered mess, but was she that desperate? Like, really? She closed her eye for a moment, and took a deep breath for strength.

"Alright, kid. You ready for the wardrobe change montage?"

 **-x-**

Adrian wasn't sure what the monster's interest in this place was, since as far as he could tell it wouldn't hold any food or much useful, but he still breathed in relief as he warily crept in behind her. At least it wasn't out in the open; the edge of danger was getting to be too much. Tension had his skin prickling as his eyes, keen in the dark, flickered in search of movement. He saw none, but his senses came together to give him a pervasive awareness of _many_. Not within sight, but the bristling was nearly unbearable.

During times like this, it was best to lay low until the feeling of threat had passed. Whether it was even real or just the illusion of being surrounded, there wasn't much to do for it except wait it out somewhere safe.

The monster had some kind of goal in mind, though. There was something she was looking for. They'd entered one tall, spacious room, and while some of it had been scavenged, there were a lot of coverings left lying scattered around. She picked through them almost aggressively, grabbing them up before scowling and tossing most of them to the side. Were coverings that important right then? She already seemed to have plenty of them to him; it was a strange thing to fixate on over _safety_. Deciding to ignore her, he ventured further in searching for someplace he could tuck himself out of sight.

He had to actually stop himself from shrieking in alarm when something _did_ move. He'd already dropped into an attack stance before it clicked that it was _him_ again. Had this other him followed him? There was the same kind of surface as back in the water room, so maybe this was where it lived? Which would have to mean they were… connected, somehow. Once again, a tense, breathless fascination crept over him. He slowly crept closer until he was within range to reach out. His claws ticked over the same cool hardness as before, and the copy reached out too.

 _Trapped,_ he realized, with a soft frown and a pang of sadness. It had been a while since he'd been able to focus on feeling sad for another creature in his own fight for survival, but this made him think. He wondered what it must be like to be trapped inside of this thing. A cool breeze swept in, heightening the chill that ran over his skin.

He shook from his daze with a quiet gasp when he suddenly realized that the monster was now behind him mumbling confusedly. Some of her old coverings were gone, replaced by unfamiliar ones, and she had an armful of more. Mildly frightened, he put his back to the image, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder to see if it was still staring back at him. He hoped his retreating from it and glancing towards the monster was enough to get across that he wanted to get away from here. It was a huge relief that she seemed to understand and followed. Actually, it was kind of exciting that she might be starting to understand him at all. He'd be able to appreciate it more if he wasn't so concerned about being swarmed and killed at any moment. But for now, he was just glad to get away from there.

Hopefully soon he'd stop feeling the image's eyes burning into the back of his head.

 **-x-**

Well _that_ had been one of the creepier things Skyler had seen since shacking up with this kid. She neither knew what had prompted him to sit in front of the floor mirror for probably twenty minutes straight or just what he was seeing that spooked him so badly, but gee, it made one wonder. With all the shit that had happened to her, at least she could say she was immune to this whole green flu thing.

After some serious effort, she'd managed to replace her top and pants with a nice absorbent grey cotton top and some deep-pocket men's, and even find a few things she thought might be suitable for Adrian that didn't have a gigantic "DON'T WANNA TACO BOUT IT" or what the fuck ever on it. Of course it had occurred to her that she could put him in any ridiculous logo she wanted and he wouldn't know any different, and it wasn't even so much that she wasn't that cruel as she didn't want to lose her shit at the wrong time. Admittedly now she felt a little bad considering he was obviously stressing enough.

"Alright kid, so. Got a few choices here," she offered, spreading out the assortment over the floor. Fortunately they weren't very far apart at all in size, so she had an idea what would fit. A couple pairs of sweats; a few understated tops in black, blue and grey; and a couple of sweatshirts in flannel and grey and black plaid that would keep some of the chill out, whether he felt it or not.

At first he didn't seem to realize these were meant for him and only vaguely sniffed at them until she gave another motion downward. He rumbled seemingly in assent and began to gather up the whole pile himself. Skyler snorted, taken by the sudden image of this leaper waddling around bundled up like that kid from "A Christmas Story".

"Uh… no. I'm taking some of these back." She stifled a laugh and reached to grab back some of the bundle. Perhaps not taking kindly to being laughed at, he narrowed his eyes, and then she was blinded as one of the sweatshirts was flung directly over her face. "Agh! Fucking… Rude!" she complained, muffled by the clothing, dropping to the floor and then collapsing only a little melodramatically. She heard a weak snicker before wiping the garment away.

For real though, it was time to convince Adrian out of his clothes and get the hell out of dodge. Just being around here was giving her the creeps. Hopefully their luck hadn't run up just yet and they'd be out of the city by daybreak.

 **-x-**

Finally, Adrian understood why the monster would want to discard the coverings that were familiar to her. He flexed his joints, wondering at how flexible and non-irritating the new fabric was, and immediately knew how good this would be for running, jumping, and just about anything else he wanted to do. Strange as she was, she could be clever. He'd taken everything that he'd been carrying out, and picked the darker bottoms and a grey top. Of course, he'd been resistant, still nervous about the thought of changing, but he was glad that he had. Maybe not all kinds of changing were painful.

The monster was still smiling despite the tension as she sauntered towards the exit. A lump caught in his throat seeing that, and though at first he couldn't place why, he thought he had something after some easing:

He… was going to regret it when he had to kill her. Past when he'd been certain that she was waiting to turn on him at the right moment, it had been nice simply having someone else there. He knew that he was going to have to. There was no denying the demand, after enough wearing away he'd succumb eventually. Inside his coverings, he wrapped the shiny thing around his hand and squeezed lightly. Just… not now.

At what point had he gone from despising the thin line keeping him from slaughtering her to actively hanging onto it? He was too focused on wondering to be as alert as he should have been. Buildings and landmarks passed in a daze while he fell behind to follow her lead outside. Something was still bothering him, too. There was a tangle of scents here, too many to pick out just one. And that had to mean that somewhere… somewhere nearby…

Inattentively he nearly collided with the monster's back where she'd come to a total stop. Her body had gone rigid, and he was close enough to hear the uneven thud in her heart and catch a sweet whiff of adrenaline. It was lucky that he had enough sense to look for _why_ she'd reacted that way, because when he saw it, his gut lurched.

Nestled among the white scape and stilled metal beasts before them were the remnants of a corpse, not that he could actually see it. No, the scraps of gristle and blood were lost between the bodies of the Weak Others that they were looking upon, milling and shoving at each other and squalling for access to whatever was left. Dozens. A hundred, maybe. He didn't know the words, but he could conceptualize it. Too many. They weren't Weak Others like this; they were _the Swarm_.

They still had time to avoid this. Sharp as the alarm was, they were far enough, and none of the pairs of eyes seemed to have caught on yet. Just… avoid notice and back away. Don't act weakened, or else it would draw them. As silently as possible, he shuffled backwards, and the monster was quick to follow. And then, like an unstoppable cascade, it began to happen.

One of the Others closest to the edge blearily happened to lift its head in their direction, and after the second it took for it to realize what it was looking at, it let out a grunt somewhere between surprised and infuriated. Within seconds, a few and then a dozen more were fixated, and soon the attention of the Swarm was fully away from the devoured meal. For a second, he felt as though he couldn't get his legs under him.

And then the shrieking started, lancing through his ears and into his brain. Bad! _Bad_! He had to fight through the agony and rage that boiled up and made him want to do nothing more than mindlessly lash out to turn and make a line away from the now-charging mass.

 _RUN!_

 **-x-**

Oh _shit_! Run run _RUN!_

Skyler's boots pounded at a frantic pace over the pavement, crunching over broken glass and bits of bone and she didn't give a fuck what else she was all sorts of gone. She nearly kept pace with Adrian who seemed to have gotten the idea before she did. This was a situation she was not managing on her own. Her thoughts spun dizzily in her wild run through the main street.

 _Horde. Goddamn massive horde._

Commons by themselves or even a couple at a time may have been chump change to deal with, but her and most every survivor left on the face of the earth knew that there was strength in numbers, and it seemed that they weren't the only ones that knew that. For some stupid reason, the back of her brain turned over and over trying to find that one bible quote they used in all those demon movies but she was far too preoccupied and _goddamn it, it was going to drive her insane if she didn't die first_.

She felt oddly detached from her body, which was probably a good thing, because otherwise she'd be in some serious hurt from how hard she was pushing it and the burn of her lungs and recent injuries.

Would gunning some of them down slow down the rest? Better question. Did she dare take the time to even try? Nope. She had no idea where the hell they were headed anymore, except for _away_. The kid's back was getting ahead of her by a bit.

"LAUREN!" she screamed until her throat was hoarse over the roar so unbearably close behind, "We've got to get the hell out of-!"

She cut off and it only sunk in exactly what had just come out of her mouth when Adrian just barely slowed to look at her, confused and terrified. For a moment, she choked, not knowing how to recover from that. She shook her head, flushed from strain. "JUST, JUST FUCKING RUN!"

At least that, he seemed to be able to agree on. She could deal with whatever else if they even managed to survive this.

 **-x-**

This wasn't working. They weren't losing the Swarm.

If anything, the lure of it picked up oblivious stragglers from nearby that joined the enraged collective. Seething. Swelling. He could hear the crunches and cries as those who were knocked down or too slow to keep up were crushed underfoot. It was worse than one of the faintly-remembered dreams where he was trying with all of his might to run but was slowed by something thick and cloudy.

Think, he had to- had to think! It was near impossible through the chaos on the outside and the screaming inside of his head. The Weak Others, they couldn't…

 _Kill them, kill it all, rip it apart, make it stop forever-_

...They weren't good at climbing. If he could get far up, he might be safe. It was the best way he saw to escape. Quickly determining which building nearby was the highest, he ran for it, the monster close behind.

 **-x-**

"FUCKING… LEAPER BULLSHIT!" Skyler screamed, feeling her fingernails grate painfully trying to scale this brick face after Adrian. It looked easy enough when you had not only a set of claws for grip, but some weird mutant adaptations specifically for doing things like this. She, on the other hand, was stuck scrambling frantically after, dangling precariously hardly a few inches from grabbing hands and snapping maws. It didn't help that her right hand was still fucked up from being bitten.

 _We are many. We are fucking many, goddamn it-_

There was a wrenching second where she felt broken, jagged nails scrape across her boot. She let loose a scream of anger and frustration, kicking for all she was worth without losing her footing. From the crunching and snapping sounds that followed its yell, she didn't want to look down.

Hands slick from sweat, she just barely managed to get a grip on a higher awning to pull herself up, and it was a damned good thing she wasn't any bigger than she was. She could do this. Ignore what was going to happen if she fell.

"A little hand would be nice!" she shouted up. Thankfully, Adrian stopped spidering up the wall for long enough to look down at her. The look he _gave_ her, however, immediately flung her thought process into 'oh god please don't be locked into murder mode'. Still though, he offered a shaky hand, which she didn't think twice about accepting and using to help haul herself up.

There. She'd made it. She wheezed, clambering up and over the edge onto the roof. Adrian staggered backwards a bit as she tried to get her footing. Now to see if they could wait out-

Something grabbed her and snaked around her chest. For a single, stupefied moment, she had no idea what the hell had just happened. This ended, of course, when she felt the damn thing yank.

"Son of a TAINT YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING M-!"

Skyler was cut short when the tongue constricted and started to drag her off towards the edge of the roof. She hardly even got a chance to actually get a glimpse of the Smoker yards away on a lower roof before she was scrabbling for purchase, fighting not to get dragged into the gap. The three possibilities if she went over were plummeting directly into the horde below, smashing face-first into the next building, or else somehow miraculously surviving to be reeled in and choked to death, none of which she wanted any part of.

Well. There was one chance of her not dying horribly here. Gathering all the air she had left in her lungs, she managed a hoarse scream of, "ADRIAN!"

Less than a second passed before he was over her, and in that instant she was positive that he was going to tear the shit out of her while she was down himself. It was like she could see the thought flash across his face, right up until he snarled and slashed into the ropy appendage binding her. The ligaments or whatever the hell these things were composed of were tough and it took a couple of swipes, but soon it was effectively severed. The second that she could breathe and yank the tongue off of herself, she struggled her way to her feet and took aim with her assault rifle.

As it turned out, she didn't need to. Likely from the opposing force of having the tongue unexpectedly severed and abruptly yanked on, the Smoker staggered as she watched, in just the wrong way. She was almost sure she could see a fleeting expression of terror as the misstep caused the other special infected to lose his footing on the edge of his own roof and at the last moment desperately tried to catch himself. It bought a few moments of dangling before gravity won out and the poor fucker fell a couple of stories down and into the street. Skyler winced, pretty sure she could hear a faint snap from there.

That didn't kill him, though. While he did lay motionless for a tick, he seemed to recover somewhat and make an attempt at getting back up. Not that it mattered. When the horde wanted blood, it didn't much matter where it came from. Wounded as he was, the Smoker still managed to throw off the first couple of commons that tested their luck. The next ten, not so much. Like dropping a cube of meat onto an anthill. Pretty soon she could hardly see him, but the sounds.

Christ, the sounds were enough.

It didn't take long at all for the gasps and growls to melt into desperate screams of horror and agony, interspersed with what she could only describe as wet rags being ripped up. Sometime during this, Skyler realized that Adrian was staring just as dumbly as she was while this whole incident went down. Holy shit. She hoped that it was over soon, but by how long the noises lasted, it took entirely too long. Her face blanched. She wanted to puke.

 _My name is Legion._

It was only after the Smoker had to have been beyond dead that she recalled that one of her "gifts" from Cat was an empty Bacardi bottle full of gasoline and stuffed with a bit of gauze for a wick. Numbly she fumbled for first the bottle and then her lighter down her sock. She could clear out some of that crowd, at least. Once the makeshift wick caught, she tossed it down with a grunt, watching it burst across the back of what had probably once been some businesswoman or librarian and spread over her clothes and hair from there, and then outward until the two of them on the roof were bathed in the flickering glow of a mass pyre, baked in its warmth cutting through the winter night and witness to a horrific wail like a singular voice rising up in pain.

Adrian hadn't budged one inch from where he'd stood watching the other special meeting his grisly end, stiff and quivering. When Skyler got a better look at his pallid face, his expression was glassy and wide-eyed, perhaps not even aware of her there at all.

"Kid."

A quiet, unidentifiable sound came from his slightly parted lips. The only real movement he made was to clutch at her tags in his pocket, and then to shudder deeply when she put a hand over one of his shoulders.

"Adrian. Let's get inside."

Even still, it took a bit to detach him from his apparent trance and get him to move away from the edge and back towards where she hoped might be a roof exit. There was nothing else good to see here.

 _My name is Legion, for we are many._


End file.
